Meandering Thoughts

DISCLOSE !

2011-09-28T13:10:00.003+08:00

I do wonder, how much of our marital status information needs to be disclosed at work?

OKlah, for obvious reasons, the boss needs to know who your next of kin are and how to contact them, in case of emergency. Also need to identify immediate family members for medical coverage or insurance. And also they may need some info about your spouse, for tax record purposes.

I have been divorced for a while, no kids. Why do they need to know all details? Bila kawin, bila cerai, bila tarikh Perintah mahkamah, mahkamah daerah mana. Siapa nama ex, keje apa, alamat terkini dia. Heck, even I don't feel any need to know all that info about him after all these years, hah! Dan yang aku heran tu, borang permohonan nak jadi ahli Puspanita kat sini pun mintak semua info tu. Pelik, kan?

* sreeeetttt..... * <--- bunyi kertas kena koyak... Muahahahaha!

Oklah info untuk tujuan official, takpe kot. But hopefully the info won't be used against the staf la plak. Kes kena transfer on short notice atau transfer ke tempat jin bertendang, biasalah kena pada staf single / single again, alasannya "dia takde family, senang nak bergerak".

Bab cuti plak, staf single klu emergency leave, kena soal siasat - kenapa cuti, pegi mana, tak boleh ke buat masa weekend etc. Tapi staf lain senang-senang je call ofis "sori bos, saya EL ari ni, anak demam", dan esoknya plak "sori bos, saya sambung EL, suami plak demam". Even cuti rehat pun bos kadang-kadang biased - staf single kena beralah bab cuti panjang masa raya atau cuti sekolah, alasannya untuk beri peluang staf lain yang ada family tu balik kampung atau bawak anak-bini bercuti.

Bos-bos sekelian, toksah buat gitu erk? Orang single pun ada personal life taww....

p/s - tak dapek la esei nak join dinner free Puspanita yang ado poco-poco tu... huuuhuu...

CONGRATULATIONS MAMA....

2011-09-26T16:27:00.005+08:00

Recently, between my 5 y.o. nephew Enysh and his mom...

My sister is currently monitoring her glucose level, and Enysh was watching his mom use the glucometer.

*cucuk cucuk... boh darah atas strip*

Enysh : What are you doing mama?

Mama : I'm taking my glucose reading.

Enysh : How many points did you get?

Mama : 8.5

Enysh : Me! Me! I waaannnttt...!

Mama : OK, OK let's do yours...

*cucuk cucuk... boh darah atas strip*

Mama : Well, your glucose level is 6.0... you just ate a good lunch eh?

Enysh : *dengan nada penuh kuchiwa* Congratulations mama, your points is more than mine...

Ayong : Huh... rosak budak nih..

Ngehehehe... tulah padahnya dok leka main Angry Birds hari-hari, nak markah tinggi aje... :-)

NOT NOSY ENOUGH

2011-09-26T01:39:00.003+08:00

I have been feeling pretty sad lately. Please, bear with me...

Before I got married, I was in a pretty serious relationship with a certain T. We got connected through a common internet friend, Kak L. We started emailing each other, from discussing daily stuff to politics & religion, and sometimes just forwarding silly jokes. Well actually I've written about him before, but I don't feel like sieving through past posts and linking it now. Anyway.

Internet relationship is in a class of its own. You don't meet face to face, so you are not judgmental nor distracted by the other person's looks. Whether he wears designer clothes or a shirt from Jusco is irrelevant. For the same reason, you are less inhibited, and tend to write more intensely. So we got to know each other's mind and heart quite well. We don't always share the same opinion, but we got on very well. So well that I started to have feelings for him. He made my days very exciting and happy.

We did meet and talk on the phone, but not often. He is a pretty religious person, and at that point was doing extra studies under the tutelage of a prominent religious scholar. Slowly, his emails too start to hint at taking the relationship further. And I waited for him to actually pop the question, but it never came. To cut a long story short, he had misunderstood one of my emails, and he waited too long, and someone else 'cut in' - my ex, to be exact.

I accepted my fate. I accepted losing him through a stupid misunderstanding on his part. And I also accepted the rest of my marriage which is now a history. But in a moment of weakness a few months after the big D, I had contacted him again. I needed someone to console me, and he had always known how to pacify me, advise me religiously, make du'a for me. He guided me away from my crazy rantings. And somehow our relationship revived. This was in 2003, I think.

Only a few months later did I find out that he was married. I got very upset and wanted out. But him being of a religious background, started to educate me on the virtues of poligamy. Now that's a tough call, as I have never been exposed to that before. No one in my family, cousins and all, have ever been poligamous. Although I do not reject it as it is allowable in Islam, but I never considered it for myself.

But I learned. I read up on it, and my perspective changed somewhat. He too went a step further by telling his wife about me. Several times he asked me to meet him & his wife, to see for myself that a poligamous marriage is workable. Indeed one time during raya, he had actually parked in front of my house and I could see him from my bedroom window, but I told him to turn back, I was not ready for him to meet my parents. Rather, I know that my parents abhor the idea of poligamy!

Anyway, all that happened in 2003 and 2004, I think. During that re-connected time, he proposed directly 3 times, while hinting many more times, but I wasn't ready. Later he told me that he was taking another wife, a divorcee working at the same place. I respected his intention, it made me look up to him more, because I know that his reason for poligamy is an honourable one, to help divorced ladies find their foothold again. Much as what he intended to do for me. Indeed, this was what was practiced by our beloved Muhammad s.a.w.

Now here comes the miserable part...

By virtue of my work, I have access to some database, internal and external. I've had it forever, but don't know why, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to look him up. And only then did I realize that despite knowing a lot about this person's heart & mind, but I didn't know much about him. And for my nosiness, I got quite a shock, padan muka aku.

A search on the databases produced his NRIC and address, and of some other people connected to him. He was actually much older than myself. Come to think of it, I never did ask his age. He had different addresses, the earlier one in KB and the current one in BBB. OK not a problem there. But googling him, I found that he has 7 kids from his first wife. And that his second daughter had recently tied the knot last year at the age of 22... do you see it yet?

The time when we first got hooked up, he was already married, with teenage kids!

But he never gave a clue about it, even when we met and then came across some friends of his, he introduced me as 'the one' as if he didn't already have someone in his life. Why? I felt betrayed, but maybe it's partly my fault for not being nosy enough to establish those things first, earlier in the relationship. But I couldn't have known, could I? Wouldn't the onus to disclose such matter fall on him?

It is so sad finding out that someone you trust and respect so much, has not been truthful from the beginning.

SubhanAllah.

BLUE EID

2011-09-26T01:09:00.003+08:00

A dear friend asked the other day, when will you start blogging again? I didn't know then, but I thought I would when I start to feel lonely again. That was initially my reason to blog - the need to share my loneliness, frustration and anger resulting from my divorce, even with total strangers. Mayhaps it was best shared with total strangers, as I didn't want people judging me or tip-toeing in front of me whils holding forums about me behind my back, as I've seen them do to others.

So I guess now is as good a time as any to dust off the cobwebs from my dear old blog. I feel lonely! I'm not alone, mind you. But being lonely in a crowd is so darn worse than being lonely alone!

Ever since the big D, the Eid (and the days leading to it) has always been a sad and empty time for me. No Eid preparation for myself (new clothes etc). The most I do is to help spring-clean my parent's house and maybe bake 2-3 types of cookies upon mom's request. Second day of Eid, both my siblings took off to their respective in-law's place. So that's how I ended up spending second raya at Chillies Bangsar. Third raya was spent alone growing roots in front of the idiot box, watching an endless stream of CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones... it's a wonder I didn't get nightmares that night.

But Jie, you chose to do all that, so why are you whining now?

'Coz I'm bloody human with bloody emotion & thoughts, and pretty low self-esteem, that's why.

And I don't give a camel's arse about Law of Attraction right now, ok?

:-(

REAFFIRMING MY FAITH

2011-05-14T23:08:00.006+08:00

LabbaikaLlah humma labbaik...

AlhamduliLlah all went well. A most beautiful experience, unlike any I've ever had. All my life, I have had Him in my conscience, but now His presence is more evident than ever.

Out of all that, I've realised how amazing my faith really is, how it should be practiced with love and tolerance, and more importantly to use the 'aqal that He has given us rather than to follow blindly, as lambs do their shepherds.

He is forgiving of our sins, if we would only repent.
He gives us what is best for us, if we would only ask.
He puts hindrances in our way, so we will always remember Him.
Best of all, He rewards us tremendously, when we do!

Ya Allah, peliharalah aku dalam iman dan baraqahMu, amiin...

...

2010-06-16T22:31:00.003+08:00

Life is getting increasingly difficult, emotionally.

Spiralling down, down, down.

Lost in my own misery.

Almost.

Help!

BANGAU PENING

2010-05-21T14:51:00.005+08:00

Pening.

Vendor A kata barang Vendor B tak ikut spec,

sebab tu projek fail.

Vendor B kata barang OK tapi Vendor A tak reti install,

sebab tu projek fail.

Consultant kata jangan bayar, kerja Vendor separuh jalan,

sebab tu projek fail.

Project Manager kata Consultant tak reti bagi advice,

sebab tu projek fail.

Client kata Project Manager tak nak dengar nasihat Consultant,

sebab tu projek fail.

Big Kahunna kata terminate je semua orang,

sebab projek sememangnya dah FAIL!

hoi! hoi! HOI !!!!

Semua orang dok tuding jari je,

Apa ni, lagu Bangau Oh Bangau ke?

Macam budak-budak!

Pening!

Siapa yang rugi?

Rakyat!

PENING!!!

HATI INI

2010-05-19T23:12:00.004+08:00

Hati ini aneh sekali.

Kadang-kadang degil sekeras batu, membisu.

Biar dipujuk, dibelai, walau diugut, tetap tidak berganjak dari keputusannya.

Biarpun adakalanya hati ini tahu, bahawa keputusan itu bukan yang terbaik untuknya, malah mungkin keputusan yang merugikan atau yang salah sama-sekali.

Tiba-tiba melembut cair, mengalir air mata.

Hanya kerna terbaca emel-emel lama yang telah dibuang jauh dari ingatan (tetapi silap teknik, telah ter-archive dalam sistem emel itu)

Maka ingatan lama (atau 'keterlupaan lama'?) datang menderu bertubi-tubi.

Tentang seorang cinta yang pernah bertapak di hati ini.....

Yang menceriakan hidupku, yang mendidikku, yang menasihatiku

Yang mengambil berat tentangku, yang mengasihiku

Yang amat bermakna dalam hidupku

Yang kuharapkan menjadi umarraku.

Namun takdir memisahkan!

Janji-janjinya yang pernah dilafazkan suatu waktu dahulu.

Masih... ingatkah dia?

Masih... terkesankah aku?

Masih... cinta... kah?

Hati ini memang aneh sekali!

MISSING IT

2010-04-17T18:57:00.005+08:00

"Do you miss it?" asked a friend.

Agak tersentak jugak dengan soalan tu. Took me a few seconds before answering "Y..yyess..." In actual fact? Do I miss it? Like hell I don't!

I remember asking the very same question to Shook, the 'abanglong' in our group of happy-go-lucky singletons years ago. His answer was, "well, if you've never had it, you wouldn't miss it, cause you don't know what to miss." Yeah, he's right, I guess.

But if you've had it, and suddenly you don't get it anymore, it's like a Mat Pet going cold turkey. Absolute torture. The cravings, the cold sweat, the headaches. The emotional tension, making you crabby, snappy and angry. Takes quite some time to cool down. Lots of conscious effort to divert yourself.

The first few months for me, I had to take a sleeping pill every night. And I wished there were pills to help me get through days as well. Don't think only men have a bad time with abstinence okay, women go through hell too! It is fitrah manusia, after all. In fact, men probably find it easier to get a relief as compared to women *sigh*.

Though it's been a few years now, there are still moments of craving that makes me breakdown in tears. Times like these, the temptation to just fold in and say whaddahelljezfookit gets very strong, and it's not like there's no available alternatives out there. What am I afraid of, nothing to lose, I'm not a kid anymore. I'd love to say it is purely Iman that holds me back, but truth be told, I'm also chicken and have no guts to actually do it. So then, tears it is. Cry myself to sleep.

Allah, please help me!

*pic obviously googled

GONE TO FACEBOOK, AND BACK AGAIN

2010-04-15T13:33:00.002+08:00

Ahh... my long-neglected blog... I miss you so!

Sorry I've been away for so long, caught the facebook bug, just like everyone else! It was so much fun initially catching up with old friends, posting old & new pics and leaving hil;arious comments to each other. And it still is fun, but I've noticed some changes lately lah.

Some people have started to get too personal on facebook. Putting up several posts every day, declaring undying love for their spouses. Yeah, it's good that you're in love, but is that kind of post of any value to the social network that facebook is? And the fact that you are a second wife, kind of puts ideas into other people's heads, ya know?

Some others share their arguments & catfights on facebook. Hey hey, I hope your spouses don't know anyone on your friend's list, cause it'd be embarassing to run into friends who suddenly ask "eh, dah berdamai ye? ", or this "eh, yang sakit tu ari tu *wink wink* dah ok ke?" It's OK if you wanna let off steam when you are upset, it's OK to confide in some good friends, to ask for advice etc. But remember, what you post on facebook today, may also be read and remembered by your friends (or horror, your nephews and nieces!) days afterwords.

Oh, and there's worse. Some people use facebook as a warzone! They post hurtful remarks on each other's walls, provoke each other and get other people to join in their fights. Case in point, two women (one a wife, the other a girlfriend) fight over the guy in the cyberworld, calling names & accusing each other with terrible things. Wifey thought she was one-up when she started posting 'manja' pics of herself & hubs, until the GF started writing and describing 'manja' stuff between herself & the guy. I wish they'd just drop off facebook and take their fight elsewhere *sigh* Meanwhile, hubs is eyeing someone new... boleh?

So, my old faithful blog, I'm back :-)

I'm still on facebook a couple of hours a day, but I think I'm more at peace here with you, I can be more myself here with you!

CHEATING THE BLIND

2010-02-01T22:30:00.006+08:00

Are we compassionate towards people with impairment (or 'OKU' as society labels them)? Truly, you will not understand the challenges they face, unless it happens to you or a loved one.

Last week I went for a foot reflexology massage at a centre operated by vision impaired masseurs (betul ke ejaan aku nih? hehe). Their impairment range from partial vision to total blindness. Although their eyes do not see, but their well-trained fingers reveal health-related things about you that you may not even be aware of!

Anyway, that's not what this post is about (although the masseur was able to tell that my vision is not perfect i.e thick glasses, I do not drink enough plain water, and that my bowel movement is not as good as it should be - all these within minutes of touching my toes, go figure!).

We chatted as she went about her work. Out of curiosity, I asked how she managed her money, if she could tell one ringgit notes from another. She said the old notes were easier to figure out, because they were of distictly different sizes and 'feel' (texture?). RM1 was smaller than RM5, which is smaller than RM10. RM50 is widest and RM100 is longer. But these days, the notes are almost similar in size, except for RM5 notes which is easily recognized because of it's different material component.

Wow. I've never thought out how our changing currency notes can affect the blind. A few days before that, my masseur and a friend had gone to a pizza place for a meal. Paying for the RM20 meal, the friend handed over a RM100 note to the waiter, and the waiter returned the balance to my masseur, the notes being folded haphazardly. See how the waiter duped them? When my masseur received the RM30 balance, she thought that her friend had paid with a RM50 note. But instead, they were short-changed of RM50. They only realized this after they had walked all the way back to their workplace.

So they returned to the crime scene and demanded the waiter to return their money. The waiter didn't even ask for a receipt or anything, and just handed over a RM50 note before shoo-ing them out of the pizza place. Obviously he knew their claim was genuine la. But how could he knowingly cheat them of their hard-earned money, by using their impairment as a weapon against them?

These are decent, honest and hard-working people. They do not take the easy way of becoming beggars on the streets. Instead they learned a skill, trained for years, work for 10 hours a day just to earn a living. Getting up in the morning every day is already a challenge to them, they do not need the extra worry of being victimised by so-called 'orang sempurna'. We've got a few things to learn from them about honesty, hope and perseverance.

It's a good thing my masseur was vision-impaired, otherwise she would've seen the shame I felt, listening about this incident.

2010-01-11T01:55:00.001+08:00

Dear all,
Check out Kojiq's World, it has been updated.
Thank you for taking time to read snippets of our lives touched by Autism.

NEW YEAR 2010

2010-01-10T02:24:00.002+08:00

Well, "Happy New Year to you", and such.
Am not much of a 'new year' person. In fact, new year's eve was spent on the bed, kul 10.30pm dah tergolek tidoq, not even bothering to watch the televised concert/fireworks whatnots.

Anyway, am still adjusting to year 2010 at the office. Asyik tersasul sign tarikh pada minit as **/**/01, instead of **/**/10.

New Year resolution? Nah, don't believe in making resolutions only on new years. You should resolve to do something at any point it becomes necessary, betul tak?

Oh no, this year's the big four-oh for me! *dread*

Life goes on :-)

SLEEPLESS & LESS SLEEP

2009-10-14T13:26:00.002+08:00

Tak cukup tidoq malam tadi.

I've resumed my support for local writers & novelists. Bought a few books last week, and borrowed a few others from friends. Last night was spent reading "Cinta Kau Dan Aku" by Siti Rosmizah (ISBN 978-967-5234-28-6) and crying buckets towards the ending. OK, OK, am I getting soppy or what? Hehehe :-)

I don't have time to really comment on it, and anyway it's quite a predictable girl-meet-boy novel that's flooding the market these days. Tomboy who likes cars, becomes the CEO's driver, ends up marrying her boss, the boss's biatch-lil'-sis breaks up the marriage, revenge, undying love, forgiveness... arrrgh, what'd I tell you about it being predictable? Hehehe.... but it's a nice ringan-ringan read before bedtime la, I loike.

I also kinda liked the author's other novel that I read a couple of weeks back, "Andai Itu Takdirnya" (ISBN 978-983-3669-65-3). Will explore other works by other authors also, insyaAllah.

Will I be reading a sci-fi sequel soon, please...? :-)

Wanna catch a few winks before lunch break is over - mata dah berpinar ni sebab tak cukup tidoq, padan muka aku!

SORRY, NO HELP U

2009-10-10T17:46:00.002+08:00

Kejamkah aku, menolak permintaan bantuan dari seseorang secara point-blank?

Orang yang pernah menangguk cintaku selama lebih tiga tahun, di saat bodohku yang baru melangkah dari alam pelajar ke alam kerja, dari alam remaja (plus plus) ke alam dewasa. Dia bijak merangkul tangkai jantungku, pandai bermadah rupanya berhelah, kerana dia memang lelaki yang berpengalaman! Apalah dayaku seorang budak hingusan dalam bab berkasih, pasti tewas dengan ayat-ayat cinta seseorang sepertinya! Saat aku diberitahu statusnya, hatiku luluh, tetapi.... aku suci hati percaya yang cintanya ikhlas walaupun rintangan terbentang di depan mata, sehingga satu peringkat aku telah redha berkongsi kasih.

Hampa. Aku rupanya hanya boneka buat mengisi waktu lapangnya. Mujurlah modal perhubungan itu cuma hatiku sahaja, bukannya jasad *ngeri*. Di akhir episod itu emosiku terkapai-kapai, berbulan-bulan berendam air mata. Dua tahun selepas itu, dia menghantar email untuk menyambung semula perhubungan, dan bila mengetahui waktu itu aku akan bertunang, menghantar pula email kedua mengatakan, "tak mahu kawan tak apelah, saya memang dah jumpa awek pengganti awak".

Dua hari yang lalu, aku dapat panggilan telefon di pejabat, "Ini Jack, kawan u, ingat saya?" "Saya nak minta tolong pada awak, tolonglah saya mohon sangat, saya nak pinjam seribu... hari ni hari terakhir saya kena..." Dan dia menangis.

Haruskah aku simpati dengannya?

Aku tidak berdendam kepadanya, walaupun aku rasa victimised. Tetapi aku juga tidak dapat memaafkannya kerana dengan sengaja telah membazirkan segala kasih yang kucurahkan, membazirkan lebih 3 tahun waktu mudaku. Lost innocence can never be replaced!

Maaf, kita sekarang tidak ada kena-mengena lagi.

Banyak chantek muka lu, dulu main-mainkan hati gua, sekarang mau minta pinjam duit. Porachit!

ME, BOOK THIEF?

2009-10-09T12:48:00.004+08:00

On Wednesday evening, I was in OneU. Had a meal with Angah at TGIF, I just lurrrve their chicken caesar salad la, have to order it every time I'm there.

*Jie makan salad? Apsal tak kurus pun???* Oh, that's because the salad is just a starter! Hehehe...

Lepas tu, pegi beli some toiletries. OK, years and years of looking for skincare yang suitable for my sensitive skin, baru this year I started on SKII. Takde eksyen OK, but their product is so darn good! The damage was almost RM1K, but it will last me a few months, so memang berbaloi.

Then, toting the big SKII paperbag, we went to the big bookstore in OneU's new wing. Ala, kedai buku tu ler. Tak ingat namanya? HmmmMPH!

Started browsing books, dah habis round kat bawah, naik tingkat atas plak. Then only I realized what was nagging me dari tadi. Their pakcik security guy muka tempe in the blue uniform was following me around!

OK, bila aku browse novels, aku dah perasan la dia ada dekat2 situ, but maybe dia pun baca novel. But when kat kiddies section I saw him picking up boardbooks worth some RM80 per book, well! Lepas tu aku ke travel section, dia plak dok belek buku on Hong Kong. Bila aku stare kat dia, mulalah gelabah, buat2 cari buku while peeking at me. Nampak sangat ngintip aku tuh!

Alahai... aku ni ada muka pencuri buku ker????? Bengang giler dibuatnya!

OK, kalau takut aku curik buku masukkan dalam paperbag tu, then kindly tell me to leave the bag at the cashier counter or something la. Tapi kalu dia suruh tinggalkan beg tu, I'd rather just walk away, sorry la nak tinggalkan RM1K worth of SKII products kat orang yang aku tak kenal beb!

Masa nak bayar for some books I bought for my nephews, I asked the cashier, "korang suruh mat sekuriti mengekor customer ke, klu rasa customer tu nak curi buku?" She blinked, and said "maaf kak, saya orang baru". Irrelevant answer!

Then I said "dik, korang ingat akak nak curik buku rege 30 hengget, masuk dalam beg SKII ni ke? Sori la, pencuci muka akak ni pun worth much more than your books tau!"

Eksyen aku, kan? Muahahaha!

PEE DEE ARMY TOWN

2009-09-30T01:16:00.003+08:00

On the news today :-

"Port Dickson diisytihar Bandar Tentera Darat..."

Oh puh-lease...!!! How much more obvious can you get?

KUIH RAYA

2009-09-27T20:17:00.002+08:00

Tahun ni banyak sungguh kuih raya, tapi aku kurang teruja nak makan sangat. Sebab, berbeza dengan tahun-tahun lepas, tahun ni semuanya 'kuih tunjuk'. Both the gas oven and the electric oven went bust, and no one bothered to send for repairs. Too bad lah.

Ever since I can remember, we've always made our own Raya cookies. Mom used to enlist me & sis to help 'terap' (using a cookie cutter) the cookie dough, and to put the 'mekap' - sapu telur, letak ceri, letak badam, tabur cornflakes etc - depending on the cookie recipe lah. When I was in college, mom 'retired'. So me & sis bercekang mata baking cookies after terawih sampai pukul 2-3 pagi.

We would try out new recipes, but we always have several biskut wajib di rumah ni - peanut cookies, dates roll, tea biscuit, semolina biscuit, and mom's special pineapple jam tart. Ada jugak buat kuih yang traditional, like samperit, buah redan, kuih gunting, kuih goyang, kacang tojen, bahulu, masa arwah nenek was still around.

Peanut cookies - easy peasy. Ground peanuts, sugar, flour and some peanut oil to bind all the ingredients. I suppose that's how the name 'Biskut Mazola' came around, tumpang nama oil tu.

Dates Roll is more complicated. Ada custard powder and powdered milk in the dough, which is rolled out, cut into strips and wrapped around slivers of dates, Then sapu telur and tabur crushed cornflakes on top. Yang leceh, the dough is so lembik and expands after baking, so kena buat kecik-kecik sebesar jari kelingking. Berchenta nak abih satu adunan pun.

I have no idea where Tea Biscuit got it's name, perhaps it was served for tea in it's country of origin? Mom got the recipe from her kakak ipar masa awal kahwin dulu, who got it from some mat saleh friend of hers. I really love this cookie. It's got cornflour and powdered milk in it, so it's quite garing and lemak, especially with a topping of finely ground almonds, yummy!

Semolina Biscuit is another easy peasy one, it's the first biscuit mom let me make by myself masa sekolah rendah lagi. Just the basic ingredients of butter, flour, sugar plus a dose of semolina. I love the crispy and grainy texture of this biscuit!

And then, the all-time favourite Pineapple Jam Tart. Mom has collected several tart recipes over the years, a different one for open-faced tart, lace tart, tart bentuk nenas, tart gulung. This one is really a favourite among our guests, satu adunan (about 100 pieces) is usually finished by second Raya.

We make our pineapple jam from scratch. Usually 3 or 4 pineapples are grated, mixed with sugar and cooked over a slow fire until the jam thickens. The aroma of the cooking jam wafting... mmm... menggoda betul time-time puasa tau. But I hated the process, lenguh tangan kacau jem, lama weh!

These days mostly orang buat tart gulung, where the dough is pushed trough a cookie press to form a strip, and rolled around some jam. It's easier to make and store. Ataupun tart bentuk nenas, where the jam is put in the middle of the dough, and the dough is snipped all over with the ends of a scissors to resemble pineapple skin. But personally, I like the open-faced ones. It used to be my job to drop a blob of jam into the depressed centre of the tart dough, and then to lay thin strips of dough criss-cross over the jam, so that it doesn't get messy when stored in stacks later on.

Alahai, too bad tahun ni aku takde buat kuih raya, tak dapat upload gambar...

HOW I SPENT MY EID

2009-09-23T14:43:00.002+08:00

Eidulfitri has not always been 'deeply meaningful' for me, with all due respects.

See, the traditional practice is to get up early, dress up, go to special Eid solat at the mosque, come home to a hearty breakfast. Then the customs of salam-salam "mohon ampun dan maaf, mohon halalkan etc etc", usually beginning with the wife (tearfully? usually) asking forgiveness from the man of the house, followed by her children (tearfully? sometimes) asking forgiveness from their father & mother, then younger siblings (tearfully? takdo yo) asking forgiveness from older siblings etc etc. And then kids get packets of duit raya, yay!

Well, my mom doesn't make that ritual a habit. I recall her doing that a few times when I was little, but that was a long time ago. So by now it's kinda awkward for all the rest of us to start doing it, kepimpinan melalui teladan y'all. Nuff said. The only ritual that I do every Eid is (together with my aunts & cousins) to always visit my grandparents at their final resting place, sedekah bacaan yassin & tidy the place up.

This year was nothing different. Pagi siapkan makanan sementara the guys pegi solat sunat, guests arrive, makan, pegi kubur, balik cuci pinggan sampai nak pengsan as more guests arrive, eat and happily pile up the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

Finally after maghrib, I met up with 2 old friends - figuratively and factually old, haha! These guys I've known for more than 15 years and being KLites, memang usually come to my house on first day Raya. But this year I was so not in the mood for festivities, that I suggested we met elsewhere. So that's how I came to spending my malam first Raya at an Old Town White Coffee outlet, drinking hazelnut white coffee and munching on roti bakar, talking crap and catching up with the latest... well, crap. Haha!

And just like that, my so-not-deeply-meaningful first day Raya, was gone.

Second day Raya morning - reheat the previous day's cooking, and wait for the next batch of guests... and the tsunami of dirty dishes that follows *sigh*.

I miss those days when he's sitting in a chair and I sit at his feet, I kiss his hands and asks for his forgiveness, and he strokes my hair and says to please forgive his mistakes too. To do all this dengan ikhlas, is so deeply touching, that you can feel old bad feelings just melt away, and you become the happy family again, heart full of love and and forgiveness. Now, Those were really meaningful Eids that I've ever had...

So if you are not really into all those salam-salam custom, it would be nice to start now with your own spouse and kids. Spend time reconnecting with relatives, instead of going shopping at One Utama or sitting & talking crap for a few hours in an Old Town White Coffee outlet on first Raya Aidilfitri.

SWEEPING AWAY COBWEBS

2009-09-23T14:21:00.003+08:00

Man, I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since the last update! Ni semua gara-gara Fesbuk!

Dari dulu lagi friends dok ajak masuk friendster, then facebook, but I wasn't too interested in so-called socializing online lah. Then my college alumni started calling around, talking about an upcoming reunion event, and "details available through facebook". And I started reconnecting with old-old frens, farmville-ing, doing quizzes etc. Hanyut blog aku.... hehe :-)

But somehow, I miss blogging, writing mostly mundane and inane stuff, but writing nonetheless. I hope to be able to set aside some time everyday to blog, even if no one else reads it.

Go girl!

IT'S A LADIES' THING

2009-06-28T03:26:00.005+08:00

So.

Just had my very first ever mammogram earlier this week.

Ouch!

And ouch!

And just when I thought the torture has ended, the radiologist adjusted the machine to a about 70 degrees tilt.

"OK, now we do this from the side angle. Right breast first, please."

Ouch again, twice more!

So what happens during a mammogram? Well, you (actually, the radiologist does it for you lah) place one breast on the machine's plate, adjust and re-adjust so that the whole breast and the supporting tissues around the armpit area is properly placed, then the whole thingy is compressed by another plate from above, until it is sufficiently flattened (or until your face has turned sufficiently red, whichever earlier). Then they snap an x-ray pic of it. Right, left. Then the whole process is repeated with your breast being compressed sideways. Yowzers!

Actually I had been thinking about doing it for the past few years, as I do fall into a category of somewhat-risk candidate. The fact that my paternal grandmother had breast-cancer doesn't add so much risk, as compared to other factors, like my age (above 35), never having breastfed a child etc, and also my eating habits *sigh*.

Why hadn't I done it earlier? Takuuutttt.....! Not afraid of the procedure, but afraid of the diagnosis! Itulah manusia, takut untuk menghadapi kenyataan, kan? Takut untuk dengar doktor kata "there's a lump/ lesion in your breast, we have to do further tests/ biopsy/ mastectomy". Aduhai!

Yes yes, I should be doing BSE (breast self-examination). I've read about it in magazines, in pamphlets, at cancer awareness events, even online, and of course by now I've memorized it. But I never got around to actually doing it, cause the instruction says to "feel for a lump", but I don't know how the heck a lump feels from the outside! Dulu my ex used to do it for me - well I was married to a doctor - and I took things for granted and never really asked him to teach me how to do it. Hmmph!

Finally, I decided to give myself a birthday mammogram, kira okay tak? Hehehe :-) It was definitely money well-spent. Just RM202.00 to put my mind at ease. AlhamduliLlah, semuanya normal. The staff at Pantai Medical where I went to, were very nice & professional, and the procedure didn't take very long.

I'm just glad that the girlies are fine, and are dense and bounced back huuhuuu! (according to the radiologist la, and by 'dense' I don't mean shtoopid ya) And hence the pain. Otherwise I might've ended up like this pic :-P

Next stop : Pap Smear & pelvic examination, arrrghhhhh!

Note : if the tissues are no longer dense due to breastfeeding, age or whatever other factor, the procedure is quite painless and easier for the radiologist to do the adjusting.

KOPI-KOPI

2009-04-24T01:35:00.004+08:00

I like coffee, heck, I LOVE coffee actually. Been a coffee junkie since secondary school - dok sekolah asrama, beli le instant coffee sendiri kan? Sebab kalau kat rumah, haram mak aku tak kasik kitorang 'bebudak' ni minum kopi, takut ketagih kafein kot?

Tapi yelah, aku ni sekolah pun local, uni pun local. Jadik my love affair with coffee tu tak ke mana lah. Zaman tu, nescafe je yang ada kan. Kalau nak yang strong sikit, kopi cap hang tuah.

Tapi la ni, segala mak-nenek kopi ada, dari yang biasa dijual di kedai runcit, ke imported ground coffee or coffee beans, siap ada boutique lagi kan? Keji :-) Malas buat sendiri, beli je yang dah siap, sejuk ada panas ada, ice-blended pun sodap. Dari vendor kat tepi jalan cam Kopie-Satu tu, ke cafe & bistro, also kopitiam!

Oh, jangan lupa jugak kopi direct selling. Dah semacam trend plak orang kita, segala tok nenek ubat & herba, dimasukkan dalam kopi, kemudian dipanggil 'kopi pra-campur'. Apa sajalah Labuuuu... Ubat slimming la, ubat kuat la, ubat rapat la, you name it we've got it. Berkesan ke? Entah, mana aku tahu hehehe.... :-) I only drink coffee for the pleasure of drinking coffee, hah!

Jap, apa aku nak cerita tadi eh? :-P

Oh, hari tu masa tengok tv, aku terasa offended sangat ngan satu iklan kopi ni. Yelah aku tau la kena bagi nama produk yang menarik minat, baru la orang akan ingat dan beli produk tu. Macam kopi cap kapal api, kan ke kreatif nama tu? Eh, bukan kapal api ni yang buat aku offended okkay. Tapi ada satu produk baru namanya "Kopi J^nd^".

Hah? Kopi ni keluaran syarikat mak jands ke? Atau khas untuk diminum oleh orang yang ber-title mak jands je? Atau siapa minum kopi ni, dia bakal jadi mak jands? Ahkak kompius betul. Dan m-e-n-y-a-m-p-a-h sesangat dengan dialog iklan tu :-

(Sora pompuan nyanyi) "Kita minum, kopi j^nd^, setiap hari, tiap masa... kopi j^nd^, yang menggoda, rasa hebat, bergelora.... jemput minum kopi j^nd^ bang...."

(Sora jantz plak nyanyi) "... bla bla... Kopi j^and^ ni, memang menggoda..."

As if tak cukup yang mak jands biasanya (in most asian communities anyway) dipandang serong, ni dikaitkan plak mak jands dengan words like 'menggoda' and 'bergelora'. Yes we know you're looking for a creative way to promote your product, but this comes across as a cheap shot at popularity for both product and the limp pr1ck who thought up this ad. Total turn-off, even for a coffee addict like me!

SYMPATHY

2009-04-11T23:05:00.003+08:00

I've just heard some pretty hard news about a new friend.

She is a single parent in her mid 40s. Mother of 2, one kid in college, another in high school. I'm not sure of her education status, but she is a non-professional, as she had been working as an exec at a small construction-based company.

She & kids live with her ailing parents, and in her free time, she bakes cakes for extra income. Her cakes are yummy! That's how I got to know her, btw - I'm a customer la.

Last month, she suddenly lost her job when the company closed shop. Not long after that, she underwent a biopsy, and she's just got the results a few days back - third stage breast cancer. She'll be undergoing a mastectomy next week.

Sometimes, life seems so unfair, yeah?

KOLAM AYOR PANAS

2009-02-03T23:56:00.004+08:00

Masa cuti CNY minggu lepas, aku ke rumah Achik di Tanjung Malim. Saja jelah, jalan-jalan. Sunday, Achik ajak gi mandi sungai, katanya. Aku ingat dekat, tapi boleh tahan jauh gak, pastu masuk ladang kelapa sawit bagai, sungguh musykil! Oh, rupanya nak bawak kami mandi kolam air panas.

Namanya TRAP - Taman Rekreasi Air Panas, Sg. Klah. It's actually somewhere dalam kawasan Felda situ. Aiks, kena bayar? Dewasa sepuluh hengget, mahal tuh. Kena bayar, sebab ianya bukan setakat sebijik kolam air panas. Ada macam-macam lagi, termasuk kolam air gunung (sejuk) dan ladang bebuahan, kalau berminat nak rounding2 premis tu la.

Memula ke kawasan air panas dulu, aku pun masuk kolam. Mak ai, aku rasa nak melompat keluar balik, terkejut sebab tetiba kaki aku panas kan. But after a few seconds, your body temperature dah aejah, lepas tu rasa syok je, selesa. Sambil berendam, sembang2, tetiba ada suara jantz kat belakang kitorang, "ahhh.. dah masak dah telor aku...". Chis mamat nih, molot takde insurance betul. Bila kitorang toleh, rupanya mamat tu saja nak buat lawak. Dia pegang telor ayam di tangannya, huh!

Memang ada kolam kecik khas untuk rebus telur kat situ, built around one of the many hot spring sources there. Just bring ur own eggs, then boleh pakai raga yang disediakan, letak kat atas air panas yang membuak tu. They even tell you the duration - 2 minit utk quarter-boiled eggs, 8 minit untuk telur rebus keras etc. "Dilarang merebus ikan, kerang...." Duh. Nak makan ikan perasa sulfur ke?

Also, ada small shallow pools, where you can sit at the edges and rendam kaki. The temperature's pretty controlled, ada kolam yang panas betul, dan ada yang kurang panas, where at the edges tu memang ada tulis anggaran suhu airnya. Hmm... baguih le, takde la nanti jadik orang rendam kaki sampai melecur, pastu saman owner kolam ni sebab tak caution pasal suhu tu kan.

We also lepak a while at the cool mountain water pool, where there's a giant water-spouting octopus with a water slide running down it's belly. This pool was filled with screaming kids. Si Yanti teringin nak cuba, aku ok je. Tapi lepas dia slide down, dia komplen kepala dia noneng la plak. Isk isk... manja betul helper aku ni hehe.

One word of caution la. Kalau nak pegi, toksah le pegi time cuti perayaan or cuti sekolah. Hazab! Memula aku tak perasan, so ok jelah dok berendam tu. Tapi bila aku duduk kat tempat yang airnya agak tenang, baru perasan yang aku leh nampak water surface tu..... ada 'flotsam n jetsam'. No, bukan orang dari tongkang pecah. Tapi... entah berapa banyak daki, kulit mati dan kelemumur yang tertanggal dari beribu badan yang dok berendam air panas tu ye? Ewwww...!!!!

Balik ke rumah Achik, aku shower puas-puas, kasi bersih maa! Gasak la, naik la bil air dia bulan ni hehe :-)

btw, all pics here are gugel-ed. aku ada amik gambar ari tu, tapi bateri kamera dah kiok, cari charger tak jumpa la plak isk isk....

BERKAWAN

2009-02-02T01:44:00.002+08:00

Alahai aku ni, mood meng-apdet macam pasang-surut air laut kan? Masalahnya lebih banyak 'surut' dari 'pasang' LOL :-)

Semalam sembang ngan an old friend, yang terkecik hati dengan member geng lama kami. Kebetulan masa dia di rumah Mr.X, ada kawan2 baru Mr.X datang bertandang. But instead of introducing dia kepada kawan2 baru tu, he was asked to wait in another room. Ala-ala macam nak sorok, apa qah?

Terus dia terfikir, Mr.X malu ke nak mengaku aku kawan dia, sebab aku tak setanding dengan kawan2 barunya? Yelah, semenjak berhijrah ni, Mr.X dah naik pangkat, gaji dah besar dan pakai kereta mewah, sedangkan aku ni keje biasa-biasa je, kawan2 dia tu pulak engineer & architect di listed company.

Aku yang mendengar ni pun agak terkedu (while keeping in mind that I'm only hearing one side of the story la). Boleh ke meletakkan 'ukuran nilai' ke atas diri kawan dan persahabatan macam tu? Macam kisah siTanggang pun ada gak nih.

Geng lama aku tu, aku kenal masa aku mula start keje. Bermacam background dan perangai ada, dari yang keje kerani sampai le ke doktor pakar, tapi semuanya OK je boleh masuk satu kepala. Outing sama2, dinner sama2, karaoke sama2. Tak sangka la pulak bila dah tua-tua ni, boleh terjadi kes pilih bulu.

Bagi aku, all my friends are precious, tak kira la samada kau kerani sambilan ke, atendan hospital ke, pensyarah ke, hatta seorang Ahli Dewan sekalipun. (Ahli Dewan mana yang kawan lama aku tu? Uiiihhh... ni kira namedropping gak ke? Hahaha!) Aku tak kisah nak berkawan dengan apa jenis orang, asalkan persahabatan tu tak disia-siakan. Masa aku student dulu pun, mungkin orang agak pelik tengok, aku pegi ke library dengan minah Arqam yang berpurdah, tapi balik library aku gi lepak kafe dengan minah kaki disko. So what, kan?

Tapi as much as aku sayangkan persahabatan, aku teringat satu artikel yang pernah aku baca dulu. Katanya, to get more out of your life, you have to get rid of toxic friends. Maksud toxic kat sini ialah, kawan2 yang ajak kita buat benda2 yang merosakkan fizikal, mental dan emosional kita. Like, kawan yang ajar guna dadah, atau yang suka bergosip dan menghasut supaya kita sakit hati kat orang lain, dan yang merosakkan emosional kita bila buat kita rasa terhina dan rendah diri.

Aku kongsi pengajaran di atas dengan kawan lama aku tu. Oh well, rupanya dia dah mula bertindak pun.

"Aku dah delete nombor dia dari handset aku....".

Ha, OKlah tu.

GANU BRIEF GETAWAY

2009-01-09T23:23:00.001+08:00

* Note : I found this old draft, which never got posted after I wrote it because my lappie had a problem with uploading pics then, lembab nak mampos!

End of March 2008, I took a little time off to visit a dear friend whom I hadn't seen since 2002. Gosh, had it really been that long? Actually about 2 weeks earlier, I called Nore up for a chat. I hadn't seen or spoken to her in months, and to think that our offices were only 2 LRT stations away from each other! Kita ni selalu sibuk dengan hal masing-masing, sampai lupa pada orang lain, kan?

Anyway, at the end of our conversation, we decided that both of us needed a break, and it would be nice to see Lia after all these years. So off to Kuantan we went!

The weather was great, pokok tepi highway pun nampak cantik hehe :-) We began a leisurely drive on Friday morning, and arrived in Kuantan in time for lunch, at a small restaurant on the riverbank.

I've never liked ikan patin sebab selalu bau hanyir lumpur, but they're expert patin cooks in Kuantan! Ikan patin masak tempoyak, finger licking, wa cakap lu! Lia was a most gracious host. We spent the rest of the day at Lia's place. Dari aku mula masuk keta (Nore drove), sepanjang jalan dari KL dok sembang je, sampai kat Kuantan pun dok sembang bertiga, masuk tido kul 5.00 pagi. Motormouths!

On Saturday, we continued our roadtrip. Lia dari awal pesan suruh bawak extra baju, katanya nak singgah tepi pantai, so kitorang okey je la. We stopped to have breakfast at Kemaman Kopitiam.

Everything on the menu was so good! Roti bakar, telur rebus, little packets of nasi lemak (lauk sambal ikan, "huuhhh?", tapi sedap!), nasi dagang... melantak! The restaurant was packed to the brim, tua-muda-bebudak-melayu-cina-india-mat saleh, semua ada. Me & Nore got so hooked on their coffee (kopi cham dia best!), that we had forgotten that coffee is diuretic. Sib baik lepak lama sket kat kopitiam tu, sempat la gi toilet sekali :-P Kalau asyik nak ter-kench dalam keta nanti, payah.

We headed to Kuala Terengganu. Nore wanted to get some batiks, yelah kitorang keje gomen kan. Then Lia tanya, u girls remember our last roadtrip to KT? Flashback - Year 2000, me & Nore drove up to Kuantan to attend a friend's wedding, and we also stayed over at Lia's then. After the wedding, we drove on to KT. We passed by a beautiful stretch of beach with a huge rock formation on it, and we stopped to look at the scenery then. But apparently this time around, Lia had other plans for us, hence the extra clothes.

The place is in Kuala Abang, atas sket dari Dungun. There is a small guesthouse there, comprising of only three chalets, sandwiched in between the chalet operator's house, and her mother-in-law's house. How quaint!

Tak senonoh, pepagi buta kitorang pegi ketuk pintu rumah makcik tu, tanya pasal sewa chalet (and also to tumpang her toilet - the coffee we had consumed in Kemaman was still doing it's job!) The chalets were available only for the day, as a party from Kelantan had booked them for Sunday. "OK makcik, kami nak gi Pasar Payang dulu, balik kang kami singgah lagi".

So off we went to KT pulak. Terus ke Pasar Payang, borong batik - sengih je budak kedai tu, ada la dalam RM3000 worth of sale kat kitorang je. Of course lepas tu tuju ke section foodstuff plak. Yang aku never miss beli every time aku ke Pasar Payang is opak dan nese. Opak is disks of dried tapioca crackers, and nese is disks of natural palm sugar, much better quality than the palm sugar we get in KL. Jajan yang lain tu biasalah, macam-macam ada dari kuih kapit ke jeruk buah salak. Also bought a few kilos of pauh mah ite, manis betul! I bought turtle eggs for mom, and had to endure Lia 'Miss Greenpeace's scowl and lecture on turtle conservation hehe :-) Nak buat camana, mak aku suka telur penyu...

No trip to KT is sah kalau tak beli kepok lekor. Detour pulak ke Losong, borong kepok. Selain dari yang freshly cooked, beli jugak yang siap goreng and melantak dalam keta, sedap giler! On our way back, it was tea-time, so singgah satu tempat makan bernama 'Lempeng'. Ingatkan nak makan kuih & lempeng, rupanya kat situ depa jual ketupat sotong and all kinds of seafood goreng tepung, yummy! I never thought of having ikan kembung for tea before, have you? Along the way, singgah gerai kecik-kecik tepi jalan, beli jagung bakar la, kacang rebus la.

Sampai balik ke Kuala Abang, tengok makcik tu dah tunggu. Oh, promosi sket la untuk makcik yang baik ni. Namanya Makcik Zaidah, telephone number 09-8451076. Hehehe :-) Murah je sewa satu chalet dari petang sampai malam, tiga puluh hengget je. Apa lagi, masuk chalet, tukar baju, pastu berlari-lari la ke pantai! Peghak betul hahaha!

The current was pretty strong, so takdelah swim sangat. Barulah aku faham maksud 'ombak menggulung'. Selama ni dok tengok ombak kat PD, alahai... ciput je in comparison!

Lepak by the beach was a nice ending to our KT trip. Dah puas berendam & main ombak (sampai senja!), we sat on the rocks and makan jagung, kacang & pauh.

Actually I was a little sad at that time, because it brought back some memories. Masa tengah bertunang & early marriage, we always ended up on the beach in PD on weekends to lepak, sebab he didn't like crowds in malls or lepak at the movies. But no way was I gonna let those memories spoil my day with the gals, hell no!

It's nice getting back together with friends every now and then. Catching up with each other's lives... plus gossips about the rest of the gang haha! I'm sure we'll be doing this again, but sooner than 8 years (like this time) la, insyaAllah.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

2009-01-08T01:29:00.004+08:00

I've never really been one for the 'New Year Resolution' thingy. Dulu, like other teens and young adults, memang suka la buat new year resolution ni. Awal tahun semangat berkobar, tapi lepas dua-tiga bulan, hampeh tak ingat pun hehe :-) These days, resolutions are made as and when necessary sajork.

Tapi tahun ni, aku ada buat satu new year resolution. Nothing major or life-changing, no particular quests etc etc.

My new year's resolution is 'senyum'.

7 days into 2009, so far so good la. Sebab in order to 'senyum', I've got to find things to smile about. And people to smile to, or with. And while looking for all these, I'm starting to feel more at ease. And the more relaxed I am, the more cheerful I become.

Hey, is this a cool resolution or what!

POCO POCO!

2009-01-07T01:20:00.008+08:00

Siapa tak pernah dengar lagu Poco-poco, angkat tangan!

Eh, really ah? Tak pernah dengar lagunya? Namanya pun tak pernah dengar?

Ohhh... aku lupa korang ni semua bukan orang gomen atau ahli Puspanita, dan pastinya korang tak pernah pegi PLKN kan? Hehehe :-)

I first heard about this song a few years back. A colleague attended function Puspanita, balik tu sibuk cerita "awakkk... seronok la menari Poco-poco, Datin X (Pengerusi Puspanita ler tuh) pun join sama tau...". Then, bebudak balik dari kursus (standard ah gomen, kursus induksi la tu), sibuk cerita sal tarian Poco-poco yang sungguh fun and happening. Bila aku tanya, pebenda lagu poco-poco tu? Depa kata, "tatau la, lagu indon gamaknya" Aku minta demo sket camana tarian tu. Semua orang geleng kepala, "tak ingat step la, susah..." Curious... curious...

Then masa aku join gym about 2 years back, ada la plak belajar poco-poco, diselitkan masa aerobik. Wah, emangnya seronok banget! It's a very catchy tune, bila dengar lagu pun, kaki dah mula gerak sendiri heheh...

Just because I have nothing better to do at the moment, aku menggodek youtube, and I managed to find the lyrics :-

Balenggang pata-pata Dancing so energetically
Ngana pe goyang pica-pica You move so friskily
Ngana pe bodi poco... poco Your body is so chubby

Cuma ngana yang kita cinta Only you that I love
Cuma ngana yang kita sayang Only you that I care
Cuma ngana suka bikin pusing But you often make me dizzy

Ngana bilang kita na sayang You said I don't love you
Rasa hati ini malayang jauh I feel that I'm flying far away
Ci Ija... Ci Ija.... Cik Ija... Cik Ija.....

Biar kita ngana pe bayang Though I'm like your shadow
Biar na biking layang-layang Though you make me daydreaming
Cuma ngana yang kita sayang Only you that I love

Isk...isk... manalah aku paham, bahasa indon kan? Then aku terjumpa plak video clip yang ada english translation... Barulah aku tahu, lagu ni asalnya dari Ambon/Maluku, tapi version yang biasa kita dengar ni dinyanyikan dalam bahasa Minahasa/Menado (utara Indonesia).

Lepas tu aku gelak besar baca the english translation haha! Just select the lyrics above, then highlight them, to read the english translation. Have fun, everyone!

Frisky & chubby indeed, hahaha! :-D

View the video here.

HAVE A HEART!

2009-01-06T01:15:00.002+08:00

I've always maintained in all my previous posts to only write on personal matters, things directly affecting me. My family. My friends. My thoughts. My emotions. My crazy woman rantings (PMS!). My teary self-pity whines. My struggle with weight maintenance! Dan apekebenda lain la yang aku nak tulis sesoker hati aku. Semua ala light-light giteww. Mak tak koser nak buat statement ke, nak endorse opinion ke, takmoh fenin.

However, having read posts in various blogs about the IJN - Sime Darby fiasco, today I decided to include a logo in my sidebar, as a statement of my support for the Save IJN blog campaign. I do believe IJN should be left alone as it is, toksah nak privatise kan just for the sake of lining some people's pockets.

Although I have no personal interest in IJN, yet (alhamduliLlah!), but a recent chat made me realize how important IJN is to the people. It was after a meeting at the office which involved a group of otai who used to work in the agency. They were excitedly discussing the IJN issue, and out of the six of them, three are regular patrons of IJN. Wow, 50% odds? Obviously, these pensioners will be much affected by any move to privatise IJN, when the medical costs may take out a chunk from their meager pensions.

Oh incidentally, I remember someone I know who works in IJN. Some years back, he was head-hunted by hospitals from neighbouring countries. He was offered a similar position but with a double/triple remunerations, and more perks than what he's getting here. His response? "Aku belajar pakai duit rakyat, it's my duty now to serve the rakyat." Now, if that's not dedication enough from an IJN staff, then I don't know what is!

Come, I'm holding out my hands now dear friends. Join me, please support IJN! Silalah kopipes logo itu ke dalam blog anda :-)

HANTAR-HANTAR-AN

2009-01-04T02:03:00.003+08:00

Aku tak faham sungguh pompuan ini, serta mak-bapak pompuan ini :-

(1) Pompuan ni kata, taknak buat majlis atau declare 'bertunang', tapi jemput pihak lelaki 'datang bincang' dan mintak pihak lelaki bawak cincin. Oiiii..... taknak declare bertunang, tapi tak malu pulak mintak cincin? Udah le masa merisik dulu, dah diberi cincin, la ni pun mintak satu lagi cincin (cincin berlian lagi gittew uols... harga dua ribu lebih, tapi ada diskaun... terima kasih Habib Jewels yang buat sale hujung tahun huuuhuuu!), tapi taknak ngaku itu cincin tunang?

(2) Pompuan itu tanya berapa dulang barang hantaran yang pihak lelaki nak bawak, dan pompuan itu pun dah sediakan hantaran balasan. Seriosa la deknon, ada ke, takde ke, majlis bertunang ni? Ahkak kompius abes! Dan tambah kompius, hantaran lelaki 5 dulang, dibalas 8 dulang... err.... kalau hang orang kampung yang faham adat, mesti hang tau yang bilangan dulang hantaran selalunya nombor ganjil, kan?

(3) Mak-bapak pompuan ni, dari awal lagi dah bagitau mak-bapak lelaki itu, hantarannya RM8,000, non-negotiable. Amboi mahainya.... pak hang ni juai anak ka? Harus standard jual kat shopping complex, sebab fixed price, tak boleh tawar-tawar macam kat pasar malam kan? Tapi tengok le keadaan chek oiii.... dua-dua baru kerja 1-2 tahun, mana la banyak kumpul duit lagi? Keje pun biasa-biasa, executive ngan kerani je.

(4) Tapi memandangkan hantaran tinggi, pompuan itu setuju kalau lelaki itu kasik RM5,000 je, dan pompuan itu akan top-up sendiri RM3,000 lagi. Ehhh? Boleh main top-up pulak ye? Kalau gitu, awat tak set aje hantaran RM5,000? Senang citer, mak-bapak lelaki itu pun lega, dan hang sendiri pun tak yah keluaq duit untuk top-up hantaran diri sendiri.

(5) Memula sebut maskahwin ikut rate biasa, tapi bila masa 'majlis bertunang-tapi-taknak declare bertunang' tu, mak-bapak pompuan itu letak harga maskahwin RM1,184. Aik? OKlah walaupun Majlis Agama Negeri hang takdak set harga maskahwin, tapi biaq la lebih-kurang ngan state lain.... paling tinggi Sarawak RM120, paling rendah Pahang & Johor RM22.50. And what's with the wierd (intentional!) 1184 figure? Itu nombor ekor Magnum ke?

Correct me if I'm wrong, OK.

Kalau dah bertunang, kenapa nak sorok? Kan ke elok kalau orang tahu, so takde le jejantz lain yang akan cuba tekel tunang @ bakal bini orang tu kan? Lagipun, dah mintak dan dah dapat cincin berlian, takkan kau sorok cincin tu, mestilah dipakai dan ditunjuk kepada umum kan? Takkan mahu display cincin tapi taknak declare tunang?

Maskahwin = Mahar = Pemberian wajib dari segi syarak, dari suami kepada isteri yang baru dinikahinya, kalau tidak dijelaskan, akan menjadi hutang. Amaun yang ditetapkan oleh majlis agama tu adalah minima, and of course boleh beri lebih dari yang minima tu, sebagai tanda kasih dan penghargaan ikhlas suami kepada isteri.

Wang Hantaran = Pemberian mengikut adat, bukan wajib pada hukum syarak. Biasanya diberi kepada keluarga perempuan, untuk membantu meringankan kos majlis perkahwinan.

Kalau dah begitu hukumnya, yang wajib itu wajiblah, tapi yang tidak wajib tu, biarlah sesuai dengan keadaan semasa dan kemampuan pihak berkenaan. What's the point of setting harga hantaran tinggi, tapi sebenarnya dapat separuh je, dan separuh lagi kena top-up sendiri? The only reason I can see is Ego/Vanity - nak tunjuk kat orang kampung yang walaupun pompuan tu asal dari kampung yang solok dan keje kerani je, tapi dapat 'tangkap' lelaki yang berada. So much for budaya melayu merendah diri - pfffttt!

Mak-bapak pun, pikiaq la sket. Hangpa suka la dapat duit hantaran RM8,000, belanja kenduri hangpa beres. Tapi bakal menantu hangpa tu nanti, balik KL lepaih nikah, kena keluaq duit lagi untuk kenduri belah lelaki. Lepaih tu, keluaq duit cari rumah sewa, keluaq duit lagi beli katil, kerusi meja dapoq tv bagai, keluaq duit lagi bagi nafkah kat anak hang, keluaq duit lagi bayaq kereta, minyak, tol. Berapa sangat la gaji depa kalau dibanding kos sara hidup kat KL?

Jangan sampai dah beranak-pinak, or worse case scenario, sampai bercerai-berai (na'uzubiLlah) tapi loan Bank Rakyat yang diambik masa nak kawin tu, masih tak habis dibayar, isk isk.......

Sampai la ni pun aku masih tak faham pompuan ini, serta mak-bapak pompuan ini.

ODER JE

2008-11-26T08:03:00.003+08:00

Aku balik keje semalam, si kenit dua tahun Enysh tengah makan biskut.

Aku cium kepala dia, aku kata "Enysh dok sini ye, Ayong nak gi buat air."

Dia dongak kepala, "Ayong, kefefe, shejuk..."

Amboi amboi amboiiii.....

Tak padan dengan kenit, cakap pun pelat lagi, ada hati nak oder aku buatkan nescafe ais.... cheh!

MACAM SIUT

2008-11-17T08:19:00.004+08:00

Hari Jumaat, menapak jauh sikit untuk makan tengahari. Biasalah keje gomen, waktu rehat hari Jumaat kan panjang sikit.

Dah berbulan-bulan tak makan ayam peri-peri. Jadi aku pun singgah la di restoran ayam peri-peri di Sogo. Huh. Servis lembab nak mampus, dah nak habis ice-lemon tea segelas aku minum, baru dapat ayamnya. Tak apa, aku maafkan, sebab ice-lemon tea tu boleh refill... hehehe. Sementara tu, pelanggan kat meja sebelah dok merungut. Udah le kena tunggu lama, pastu waitress silap hantar order pulak. "Ni table service ke, atau nak suruh kita self-service?" kata akak tudung merah tu.

Lepas makan, aku panggil sorang waitress, minta bil. Oh, cuma RM23.90. OK, aku hulurkan RM24.00. Berapa bakinya? Ya betul, 10 sen aje. Tak apalah, aku kira halal jelah 10 sen tu. Aku pun bangun dan menapak keluar dari restoran peri-peri tu.

Tetiba depan orang ramai tu, ada satu waitress bangang dengan suara kuat kata "Oiiii... tu dah bayar ke belum?"

Aku toleh belakang dengan mata buntang.

Nasib baik sorang lagi waitress signal kat si waitress bangang tu "dah bayar la!"

Kalau tidak, mau aje aku tuang sebotol sos peri-peri kat kepala waitress bangang tu.

Macam siut.

BLANKY

2008-11-07T13:50:00.007+08:00

Masa kecik dulu, korang ada security blanket tak? Well, tak semestinya lah selimut aje kan. Actually it's a term for a familiar object that makes a child feel safe and comfortable. Can be a pillow, doll, teddy bear, blanket, clothing etc. It's commonly known as 'blanky'. First time yang aku find out about blanky tu bila baca kartun Peanuts - ada satu karektor budak lelaki yang dok usung selimut ke hulu ke hilir tu.

Jepun ni suka buat benda pelik-pelik, kan? :-)

As far as I recall, aku dulu takde blanky yang spesifik. Cuma aku kalau nak tidur mesti ada 2 bantal, satu untuk kepala dan satu untuk dipeluk. In fact, kalau ada satu bantal aje, I'd rather hug it than have it under my head. Masa membesar dulu aku tido satu katil dengan Angah, dan selalu jugak berebut bantal, dan curi bantal each other kalau terjaga tengah malam.

Need I say more? Yes, it is an actual pillow, dari Jepun huhuu!

Pakcu, well, he's always had a bantal busuk. Camana nak buat bantal busuk ye? Rasanya bucu bantal tu digentel dan dihisap kot, sebab tu la bau busuk bila air liur melekat dan kering kat situ eww......! Mula dari bantal baby yang kecik, Pakcu's bantal busuk progressed in size, sampai lah ke saiz bantal biasa. Bila dah busuk, Ibu cuci bantal tu. Tapi Pakcu tak suka bantal yang dah wangi, so dia busukkan balik. Bila Ibu buang bantal yang dah busuk, no problem, Pakcu busukkan bantal lain pulak. Aku cukup geli dengan bantal busuk Pakcu dulu... busuk ya amat! Aku harap la ni dah takde bantal busuk la, nanti dah kawin, bini pun pening kepala huuuhuuuu!

I remember one Raya open house, where one of the guests' child insisted on taking his blanky along. Tak kisah je, cuma blanky dia tu, is a comforter. Adeh la... dia seret bahagian depan comforter tu, dan maknya terpaksa usung bahagian belakang, yelah comforter kan ke berat & besar. Naya betul hehe :-)

My nephew Enysh now has a blanky. Selimut lama Abah yang telah di tuntut hakmilik oleh Enysh - kalau dia tengah pegang selimut tu, orang lain tak boleh pegang sama, nanti dia nangis. Nama blanky dia "Shimok". Ngan Shimok ni pun aku geli sket, sebab Enysh akan lap air mata la, hingus la, dengan Shimok. Kalau berjalan, Shimok tu meleret le atas lantai, sib baik dalam rumah je.

Bila dah lena, barulah Shimok jadi selimut

Some kids hug a soft toy to sleep. I used to have a yellow teddy bear to play with and sekali-sekala bawak tido jugak, called Bear-bear. But I discarded that one after it started to smell. Salah aku jugak, aku pegi mandikan Bear-bear, lepas tu berhari-hari kena tunggu kering. Bau hapak la, padan muka aku :-P A friend used to have a teddy bear as a blanky. Teddy bear dia melayu, sebab namanya "Talib". Huh? Ada ke budak namakan teddy bear dia Talib? Adaa... hahaha wierd la! Kaezzzzz..... that's you! Huuuhuuuu!

OK walaupun blanky ni dah kira biasa untuk budak-budak, tapi aku rasa la, mungkin menyumbang kepada masalah kesihatan anak-anak. Selain dari bakteria dari air liur yang kering pada bantal busuk, I'm sure banyak juga kuman-kuman lain yang melekat bila blanky ni diletakkan merata-rata. Think of these two monsters below - dust mites - lurking on and in your child's blanky!

Creepy crawlies... ewww....!

SECOND CAR

2008-11-04T13:56:00.008+08:00

Angah & Bangah dok reccy kedai kereta sekitar PJ & Shah Alam, nak beli second car. Their existing car is a 7-seater MPV, sebab kalau berjalan tu memang berhangkut dengan anak-anak, maid & barang-barang (dan selalu jugak aku pun menebeng ikut diorang berjalan hehehe).

Second car ni is for Angah to drive to & from work, dan untuk hangkut bebudak gi tadika ke, kedai ke, bila time-time Bangah takde kat rumah la. Memandangkan depa ni semua kaki panjang dan besar saiz anak gajah, kena carik kereta yang bersaiz sesuai la. Dan memandangkan anak-anak Angah yang lasak, kereta kena ada safety features yang bagus.

Angah suka Honda CRV, tapi mahal sangat as a second car. Angah punya second choice Suzuki Grand Vitara, interior luas dan smooth driving, tapi exterior tu tak sporty, macam kotak sket. Aku suggest Toyota Rush, tapi cc kecik untuk saiz kereta - 1.5 cc untuk 7-seater.

Pakcu mencelah "Angah, pakcu tau kereta apa yang enjin bagus, ruang luas, dan paling selamat sekali, orang tak hijack kereta ni."

Kami toleh ke Pakcu, "Kereta apa?"

Pakcu dengan muka selamba kodok "Black Maria"

Cikobeng betul hehehe :-)

CREAMPUFF

2008-10-29T13:11:00.003+08:00

This Friday, ada jamuan lagi. When do we ever stop gorging ourselves la, aiyo! Sampai bila pun diet aku tak berkesan kalau ofis dok buat makan-makan gini hahaha :-)

Anyway, bos mintak aku buat creampuff. Tak aci, orang lain oder je makanan, aku kena buat sendiri. Tapi no hal, sebab boleh buat the night before. Since I don't have anything interesting to write about today, aku tulis pasal resepi creampuff la plak, ok?

For the Pastry :-

2 cups water
1 cup margerine (Planta works better than other brands)
2 cups plain flour
7 eggs (medium size)

Bring to boil the water, add in margarine and stir until completely dissolves. Reduce heat, chuck in flour and stir continuosly until dough is smooth. Using electric mixer, add in eggs one by one. Spoon mixture into piping bags (will fill 3 disposable piping bags). Pipe out mixture (in a circular motion) onto a pre-greased mini cupcake pan. Bake on 175 degrees for about 15-20 minutes until pastry is golden. Cool before serving.

For the Cream Filling :-

I can evaporated milk (I prefer Ideal brand)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup custard powder
1/2 cup water

Heat water, sugar and half can of milk over medium heat. Meanwhile, mix custard powder into the remaining milk. When the water, sugar & milk starts to froth, pour in the custard mixture a little at a time, stirring continuosly to ensure the cream doesn't burn or turn lumpy. Continue stirring over slow fire until cream thickens to the consistency you like. If you hold a spoonful of the cream and it pours down in a ribbon, that should be just about right. If cream gets too thick, you can always melt it down a little with a spoonful of boiling water.

To serve, make a slit in the pastry, spoon or pipe in the cream filling. Enjoy!

I'll upload some pics on Friday, when I've actually made them creampuffs hehe :-)

STAF KONTRAK

2008-10-24T08:45:00.002+08:00

Lahhh.... baru je cakap sal job interview semalam... tup-tup keluar berita 50,000 kakitangan awam taraf kontrak akan kena terminate hujung tahun ni 'berikutan kekangan kewangan kerajaan'.

Isy.... camana ye, depa kata ekonomi kita OK... tapi nampaknya dah macam 'eko-no-money' la plak.

Nak kena belajar buat side-income la. Ada sesiapa nak tempah creampuff? Fruit tartlet? Errr... outsource assignment PTK? Hahaha :-)

INTERVIEWS

2008-10-22T13:34:00.002+08:00

Job interviews - they're like having diarrhea after eating stale food. You get tensed, stomach cramps, you feel like throwing up. You go into the little (interview) room, (bull) shit around, and then only will you feel relieved *phew!*. Did you stink or not? Well, "don't call us, we'll call you" hehehe :-)

Anyway, the HR is conducting interviews for temporary clerical staff, to be upgraded into the permanent employment scheme. OK, for their level, interviews are not as subject-oriented as interviews for professionals. But I think sometimes the interviewers just take it as their personal entertainment lah, jahat!

Here's some of my friends' experiences - but these are not necessarily interviews conducted at my office, okkay?

One candidate said her hobby was reading, so the interviewer asked her to name her favourite author, to which she answered "Ramlee Awang Murshid". The interviewer asked her to recount the novel "Hatiku di Harajuku", since the interviewer herself had just finished reading that novel. Well, she was so nervous that she muddled up the ending - she said that Noriko died, when the actual ending was Hisham married Noriko and they opened up a strawberry farm in Cameron Highlands. What a sad 'reason' for losing interview points *sigh*.

Another candidate was asked her opinion about a certain procedure practiced in her department. She was still in the midst of her first sentence, when the interviewer cut her off and proceeded to tell her HIS opinion about the procedure, how ineffective it was, the problems caused by it, and ways & recommendations on how to improve the procedures. Well, who's actually being interviewed here, huh?

One candidate in an interview for a promotion, exited the interview room royally pissed. The interview took only about 5 minutes, and just the basic 'introduce yourself' questions were asked. So the candidate asked the panel, how come I am not asked about my current job performance - the normal question in an interview for job promotion. One of the interviewers said "oh kami dah ada calon, awak ni cuma untuk cukupkan kuota temuduga aje". Buat sakit hati je!

There are some who actually bully the candidates, just to see them menggelabah. One of my clerks was told by an interviewer "saya dengar awak ni kat pejabat ada masalah sikit ye? apa hal nya ni?" The clerk was tongue-tied and panicked, before he realized the interviewer was laughing his head off "muka awak kelakar la bila awak takut!" Oh yeah, have some laughs at someone else's expense. Why don't you just drop dead?

Some candidates also go through embarassing moments. One clerk was asked what events led to her divorce, and whether she feels lonely now. I can't see the relevancy of this question to her job interview, can you?

Menyampah tul dengan interviewer yang mulut sampah macam ni!

RAINBOWS

2008-10-21T13:03:00.003+08:00

You may have come across this line before, but I just found it this morning -

" Kadang-kadang Allah sembunyikan matahari
Dia datangkan kilat dan petir.
Kita menangis dan bertanya, ke mana hilangnya matahari?
Rupa-rupanya, Allah nak beri kita pelangi..... "

Anyhow, I like it - it's inspirational :-)

So friends, don't fret, and keep an eye out for our rainbows!

ENYSH & KOJIQ'S ESCAPADE LAST NIGHT

2008-10-20T13:20:00.003+08:00

We had a hysterical moment last night hehehe :-) Apa lagi, melayan budak-budak tu punya kerenah la.

My sis had bought some cupcakes, and Enysh dok 'pau' semua orang punya. After some time, sis thought he's had enough, so tak mau kasik dia makan cupcake lagi. Dia pun mencebik-cebik la...

Enysh : "nakk.... mama, naaakkk...."
Mama : "nak apa?"
Enysh : "nak tuuuu.... *pointing to the cupcakes* "
Mama : "sebut dulu - nak cupcake"
Enysh : "naaakkk..... tuuu.... *nangis* "
Mama : "nak apa? sebut dulu - nak cupcake"
Enysh : "naakkk.... *meraung*.. naakk kepepek...! nak kepepekkkk....!"

Adehhh.... hahaha! 'cupcake' disebut 'kepepek', obscene la pulak!

Yang si abangnya Kojiq plak, terjumpa his dad's self-inking stamp... ala cop nama yang tak payah pakai stamp pad tu. Sibuk la dia mencari kertas putih, nak main cop nama tu.

Dia tak jumpa kertas putih A4, tapi dia substitute dengan another white flat surface that he could use the stamp on and see the results.

Noo.... bukan dinding. He used.... tada! His dad's white briefs. Hahaha! Chantek je dia letak briefs tu atas meja, pastu dia cop. Budak sekolah asrama pun takde bubuh cop nama dekat spender tau! Anyway, his dad's now got patterned briefs :-D

ENYSH LEARNS WORDS

2008-10-17T08:44:00.004+08:00

My nephew Enysh is 2 years old, and he's at that stage where he's dilligently trying to increase his vocabulary. I say 'dilligently', because he's forever poring over his picture books, magazines, cookbooks, anything with pictures-lah. Whenever he sees a familiar pic (also on tv), he'll call out it's name. Even when he's playing with toys, he'll pause often to recall and say the words he's currently learning.

We're coaching him in both Bahasa Melayu and English, starting with single-syllable words, and then two-syllables, like names of animals (although he calls any grazing animals as 'cow'), vehicles, fruits, foods like 'cookies', 'burger', 'pizza', 'coffee' etc. I just realized a lot of his vocab is food-oriented hehe :-) Dasar kuat makan!

Lately, mom's teaching him a few three-syllable words (also food-oriented, argh!) like 'banana', 'potato', 'papaya', 'tomato'.

This is where I get mean huuuhuuuu! I'd call out to him, "Enysh, babana! Payaya! Popeto! Tomamo!" Just to confuse him lah. But he's never, ever said these wrong words, instead he'd correct me, "Ayong, bananaaaaaa. Papayyyyyya."

He's also picked up some cute tricks. One day last week, when my brother told him to pick up a toy, he held out his hands with palms facing my brother, and said "ayahsu, no way!"

Damn. This kid's either gonna grow up to be a teacher, or maybe a lawyer? hehehe :-)

DIVA AKHIRAT

2008-10-15T13:18:00.004+08:00

Berilmu tu bagus, suka mencari ilmu juga bagus. Bila suka berkongsi ilmu, itu lebih lagi bagusnya. Nak-nak lagi berkongsi ilmu keagamaan, sudah jadi berdakwah lah juga. Ganjaran dunia pun dapat, ganjaran akhirat pun dapat.

Tapi cara mesti betul, beb.

Kita kongsi ilmu, kita terangkan dengan lembut, ajarkan perkara yang baik dan tegurkan yang kurang baik, kita ajak kawan kita perbaiki apa-apa yang perlu dibaiki. Kita buat dengan cara yang hormat, insyaAllah orang akan lebih hormat kita.

Tapi kalau berlagak 'diva akhirat' apa-orang- buat- salah- tapi- kalau- aku- buat- tak- salah- sebab- aku- niat- hati- murni- aku- masuk- syurga- korang- masuk- neraka, hmmm... susah lah. Mungkin juga jadi sampai tahap riak, berbangga sebab banyak ilmu agama sedangkan orang lain cetek pengetahuan.

Bukan saja apa yang didakwah tu tak sampai, tapi juga menyakitkan hati orang lain dan mengundang umpat-keji, malah memutuskan ukhwah pula nanti. Orang tak tegur-sapa, tak tolong buat kerja, tak ajak makan sama, tak mesra.

Sudahnya, ofis yang ber-aircond pun rasa panas macam neraka...

Isunya? Ambil gambar berkumpulan (bercampur lelaki perempuan) dengan big boss, sebagai kenangan majlis hari raya.

JAMUAN HARI RAYA 2008

2008-10-07T16:18:00.000+08:00

Jamuan Hari Raya is baaacckkkkk!

*burp*

As is the tradition here, every department will host a 'open house' during the month of Syawal. We held ours today! However, at the agency's level, the 'openhouse' for all staff & public has been scrapped off, due to 'langkah berjimat-cermat' so as to save our budget allocation for something else more important.

We had the usual fare - nasi beriani, lemang & rendang, sate, roti jala. Yang lain sikit, cuma mi hailam. Same old, same old. I wish the committee had been adventurous enough with the menu, like maybe have a popiah table where guests can choose the condiments to be assembled in the popiah - but my idea was shot down unceremoniusly *bummer*. Last year, one department included ubi rebus in their menu, and it was a hit! We had fun trying out ubi rebus cecah sambal cili goreng, sambal bilis, sambal belacan, ikan kering, ikan pekasam, kelapa parut manis, kelapa parut masin etc. Another department had rojak buah - choice of more than 6 fruits including kedondong & green apple, yummy!

Anyway, all ends well although a few guests just dropped in to say hi, as they were fasting (Puasa 6). Most invited guests turned up, and some uninvited ones as well. I'm glad that this year we managed to include our 2 cleaning ladies, some building maintenance crew and some of our security guards as our guests. It's these 'rakyat marhaen' whose service we use daily, but they are rarely appreciated.

I'm dead beat. Gonna get an early shut-eye tonight :-)

BACK TO WORK

2008-10-06T10:28:00.002+08:00

Salam Aifilfitri, dear all!

Back in the office today.

Bosan nak mampus, food court penuh sesak sebab 2 gerai je yang bukak. So pepagi subuh sepihi, terpaksa menapak ke restoran mamak seberang jalan untuk sarapan. Kira OK jugak, dah sebulan lebih tak pekena roti canai, so sedap ajelah bedal pagi ni.

Tengahari nanti, nak makan kat mana pulak?

Isy... inilah penyakit aku. Sebulan puasa, berat turun sket. Tapi habis je posa, perut dok keriuk-keriuk, lapaq!

KOJIQ'S WORLD

2008-09-26T12:50:00.039+08:00

Dear friends, do visit my second blog, Kojiq's World.

This blog - and it's subject matter - is close to my heart.

I hope you will enjoy reading it, and maybe share any experience, info or questions you may have, and we shall all benefit from it!

Thank you.

A READER'S RESPONSE : TRANSGENESIS

2008-09-18T07:35:00.003+08:00

We have a 'Book Club' of sorts here in my office. Just some staff sharing some novels we own. Actually it was more for the benefit of some of our clerks who do like to read novels, but can't afford to buy them. Us officers take turn to buy at least one new novel a month. But enough about the Book Club.

What I want to post about today are these comments made by a young clerk who had borrowed my copy of the novel Transgenesis : Bisikan Rimba. I mentioned that the author has a blog, and she asked if he would be interested to hear her comments. So, Amir Husaini, this one's for you... hehehe :-)

Unfortunately for her, internet access in my office is not extended to clerks, so I shall reproduce her comments 'almost' verbatim.... I said 'almost', because these days my memory sometimes needs to be jumpstarted with ginkgo biloba in the mornings *sigh*. Don't fret, she actually wrote her comments on paper, point-form.

On her feelings while reading the novel :-
"Secara keseluruhannya, best dan menarik. Masa mula baca, rasa excited, tapi di bahagian tengahnya, rasa macam dah boleh agak apa ending cerita so macam malas sikit nak baca. Masa sampai suku penghabisan, rupa-rupanya banyak kejutan lain! Ending tak sama seperti yang saya fikirkan, dan kejutan-kejutan tu macam memberi suntikan kepada kemalasan tadi. Ending, rasa nak marah dan tak puas hati pun ada, rasa macam "ni mesti akan ada sambungan ni...". Dalam masa yang sama sebelum noktah akhir, saya fikir "harap-harap semua terbongkar, Ixora, Cempaka, mak sedara Razilan..." Tapi rupanya sengaja dihadkan... rasa makin nak tahu misteri cerita tu, dan harap sangat ada sambungannya!"

On the story line, which she'd like to ask the author :-
"(1) Moga diceritakan, boleh ke Flora yang baik tu kawin dan beranak?
(2) Flora ada perasaan simpati, kemanusiaan, maknanya ada juga cinta dan sayang... agaknya siapa pilihan dia? (minat tak dengan Buraquzzaman...??)
(3) Tambahkan humor lagi ye...
OK tak nak tanya banyak, nanti tak surprise kalau ada novel kedua.."

On enlightenment from reading the novel :-
"Baru sedar betapa selama ni kita tak endahkan tumbuhan, buat macam-macam, tak jaga persekitaran... mana tahu, kot betul tumbuhan berdendam dengan kita! Teringin nak cium bau wangi kenanga, camana ek?"

Her last comments for the author :-
"Walaupun first time baca novel sains fiksyen, tapi saya suka! Orang yang suka berangan macam saya ni memang suka cerita-cerita gini. Sambung lah lagi ye...???"

This is a good start, methinks. Now not only do they not waste time gossiping during lunch hour (elak buat dosa kering huuhuu!) but at least they are thinking, gaining knowledge and giving opinions. InsyaAllah if there are any other comments on any of the novels in our collection, I'll try to put them up and notify the author (if he/she blogs la).

YANTI SPEAKS ENGLISH

2008-09-12T13:52:00.004+08:00

Our helper, Yanti, is really trying to learn English.

Last weekend, dalam kul 10 pagi, semasa Angah mamai-mamai baru terjaga dari napping, terdengar suara Yanti sayup-sayup dari luar rumah....

"No Ajiq... don't you take the cock... don't you touch the cock..."

Angah bingkas bangkit! Apa ke hal tu...???

Oohhhh.................. shuttlecock....

Ajiq dok hambat bulu tangkis dengan reket badminton kat tepi longkang *kuikuikui*

* Actually, she's learning English quite well, 'coz she really tries. She even curi-curi baca masa bungkus sampah dengan suratkhabar The Star. She reads the kids' books as well, and loves watching Barney & Friends and Bob The Builder.

RAMADHAN COMES AGAIN

2008-09-04T13:21:00.003+08:00

Still not too late to wish you guys out there, have a good Ramadhan. Let's hope this month of trial serves to strengthen our faith. Use up the opportunities to 'collect points' wisely!

Oh well, one should take her own advice, 'eh?

In a recent conversation, the Nadra Tragedy was mentioned. You remember? The Dutch girl who was put into the care of a muslim lady in Indon, who later took her to Singapore and married her off to Mansor Adabi. Thereafter, Nadra's parents, through technicalities of law, managed to regain custody, and ended Nadra's life as a muslim. Anyway, Sit remarked that in those days, people are willing to sacrifice their lives for religion, as the public outcry to protect Nadra almost caused a war. But that was then. What about now?

Yes, what about now, Jie?

One small example. You surf the net almost daily, you come across so many offensive writings against your religion, not only from unbelievers, but also from among supposedly-fellow muslims whose secular and deviant opinions leave you wondering if they are really only wearing masks, that inside, the seeds of kuffur are nurturing, waiting for a suitable time to jump out. Recent cases regarding conversions are, well, scary. But the scarier thoughts are the hidden foes, kan?

What do you do, Jie? Do you try to correct them? Do you try to rebut them? Do you even try to give your own opinion? That's the mildest thing that you could do. But do you do it? Hell, no!

Why? Because you suddenly realize that in the course of your daily life, you go through the 'wajib's like an automaton, and rarely do the 'sunnah's anyway. Religion takes up a minimal portion of your daily routine, which probably means it doesn't take up too much space in your mind either, 'innit?

Yes, now is the time to amend your dalliances!

SubhanAllah....

PONDERING

2008-08-27T08:01:00.012+08:00

OK, not (much) interested in politics, and not interested in putting up any political posts in this blog, yes?

But I remember this quote which I found in a novel I read in the early 90s, I don't know why it stuck to mind. The novel is a periodic set in Japan during the shogunate years, and supposedly this quote is taken from the teachings of Zen (The Book of Zen) :-

"A Government is always for the benefit of the Governors at the expense of the Governed. Sages who observe this are ever beset by the question : Why is it that the most able to govern, is not always the most worthy?"

Hmm....

Last night's by-election results came as not much a surprise. But there are things that the vast majority may not know, that will happen in the near future and have tremendous effect on our lives. We at the office are just starting to feel the heat...

On another note, there's a massive traffic jam in KL today, as they've closed some roads for the Merdeka day Celebration rehearsal. Parked buses line the roadsides all the way from Dataran Merdeka right into Chow Kit. Some helicopters just flew by bearing flags and emitting coloured smoke. Good luck in getting all my staff to concentrate on their work today *sigh*.

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR STAFF IS A CROSS DRESSER?

2008-08-22T13:36:00.005+08:00

Seriously, what to do if your staff is a cross dresser?

He does his work okay, keeps to schedules etc.

He's respectful of bosses, and makes friends easily with his peers, although the majority of his friends are female.

Always volunteers to do non-official work for the office, i.e to emcee an event.

Pleasant personality, humorous and ceria.

But occassionally, he turns up at work in a kebaya.

And lately, wearing more make-up than I do!

Well, we try to be as objective as possible, no prejudice la. Tapi udoh le awok tu koje gomen, sesekala koje jaga kaunter pulok tuuuu.... tak sesuwey langsung *isk*

I know people are more tolerant these days, but not here. Yelah, nanti hilang la pulak imej gomen yang selalu korang kutuk tu, singkat fikiran la, otak kampung la, mana boleh orang gomen tetiba jadik open-minded, kan? kan? :-P

Buat masa ni, ok ajelah because he is a good staff. But seeing as to how we are now under public scrutiny, I wonder what will happen if the Management gets a complaint from a dimwit joe about his 'sotong-ness'?

Cuma aku harap gosip pejabat tentang night-time activities mamat nih, semuenye pelesu belaka laaaa.....

MERDEKA ACTIVITIES DAY

2008-08-21T08:05:00.005+08:00

Today the whole office is one big childcare centre!

The library is holding a Merdeka Activities Day :
- fancy dress contest (the kid whose costume has the flag's motif, will win),
- colouring contest (the kid who uses red, white, blue and yellow colours, will win),
- drawing contest (the kid whose drawing includes a flag in the background, will win),
- Merdeka quiz (ok, ya gotta know ya history here),
- poetry reading contest (the kid who waves a small flag in one hand while reading his poetry, will win),
- Merdeka singing contest (the kid whose costume is draped with the flag, will win)

Thing is, it's the same events every year *sigh*. And so predictable, kinda like the current political scenario, isn't it?

BREATH

2008-08-20T13:23:00.010+08:00

Unpleasant is when you are in the company of someone with bad breath.

Sufferance is when said person is intent on speaking directly to you.

Absolute torture is when you are in a car with three other people, two of whom have bad breath and both are enthusiastically discussing a topic and repeatedly asking for your opinion, to which you weakly smile and nod your head, trying to hold your breath until you start seeing stars during the whole two-and-a-half hour journey. That's what I had to endure on Monday, travelling (five hours!) to and from one of our branch offices.

With all due respect, halitosis really is a big booboo on the social front. It creates a bad first impression, no matter how pretty your curly-lashed eyes are and how sexy your curves may be. And really, can you get up-close-and-personal on the loveboat if your partner has bad breath?

We should really take good care of our oral hygiene. Yes of course, poor dental hygiene is not the only reason for halitosis. Certain medical conditions can also cause halitosis, such as chronic liver failure, bronchial infection or even some tummy problems. Oh, even fasting can cause halitosis, if you don't drink enough upon breaking fast. Those people are excused, but for the rest of us, we really should take care with daily brushings. See your dentist as and when you have any dental complaints, or at least every 6 months if your chops are problem-free.

Done?

OK, now go kiss someone!

MERDEKA !

2008-08-13T13:16:00.003+08:00

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

It's going to be a pretty quiet Merdeka celebration this year, methinks. There was a recent announcement in the papers - no fireworks like usual-, kan?

Anyhow, it's pretty subdued in my office also. They've only started putting up flags today, and none the creatively, like in the past years. Just some normal-sized flags put outside our windows.

No giant flags flanking the sides of the building, like in 2006 (strong winds tore the flags in a few places, but no one bothered to replace the flags - I wonder how much they costed?).

No merdeka celebration ceremony officiated by the minister by attaching a small flag on a staff's car (cheap way to get your mugshot in the local papers lah!).

No 'Pertandingan Menghias Sempena Hari Merdeka' where each department is expected to thematize their front counter/waiting area (as if we don't have enough work already! Anyway, if the Pertandingan is won by the Library dept every year, what's the point? They don't deal with the public, they have ample time and no deadlines, and people with degrees in Creative Arts to do that job!)

Heck, not even distribution of free small flags to be mounted on our cars. Langkah berjimat-cermat, indeed!

But I think that's okay, it doesn't mean we are any less patriotic.

Frankly, I have never attached any flag to my car, or dressed up in clothes with our flag design, or even eaten a flag-decorated cake. Unpatriotic?

But I never fail to sing our national anthem or watched the raising of our flag in a ceremony, with a feeling of pride in my heart. And although I cannot divulge the confidentiality of my work (saya bukan SB atau apa-apa secret service okkay, cuma pegawai gomen cabuk je), I go home everyday with a clear conscience that my day's work does contribute to the betterment of our nation.

The Merdeka spirit resides in our hearts, and is reflected through our daily actions, our work, our lives, our sacrifices, our contributions to this beloved country called Malaysia.

What have you done for your country today?

Huh

2008-08-11T07:57:00.002+08:00

Sometimes life seems..... pointless.

What for to wake up early in the morning?

Life? What life, anyway?

SLEEPWALKING

2008-08-01T07:39:00.007+08:00

Have you ever woken up in the morning, feeling like you did something last night but you just don't remember what it was? Or worse, wake up in a place not where you went to sleep the night before? I'm talking about sleepwalking.

As far as I know, I don't sleepwalk. Well, so far no one has told me that I do, so oklah tu. Some friends have related their sleepwalking antics, some are funny, but some are pretty dangerous.

Lina once woke up with a toothbrush in her hand, and a slightly foamy mouth. Apparently during the night, she had gone to the bathroom, put toothpaste on her toothbrush and started to brush her teeth. But she didn't rinse her mouth before falling back to sleep, urgh!

At her school hostel once, Mai took her pillow and blanket and went to sit on the stairs outside her hostel. Luckily one of her roomates saw her empty bed and went looking for her, and guided her back to bed. She went to a 'sekolah agama', so it would've been havoc if some boys were to have found her first, in her caftan and with tusled hair, hugging her pillow on the stairs!

Faz once went to bed in a t-shirt and kain pelikat, then woke up naked and freezing in the middle of the night! Luckily he was in a room by himself. I really dunno what to think about this guy though, haha!

Why do people sleepwalk? No specific reason, but I think one of the triggers is stress or anxiety. Usually the sleepwalker does normal everyday things, but unconsciously. These normal things can turn deadly though. For example, Mai is worried because a couple of months back, she had tried to open her apartment's main door in her sleep. Had she succeeded, who knows what could've happened, as her apartment is on the 14th floor!

Well, if I ever sleepwalk, I hope I jump straight onto the treadmill, which is right now just gathering dust in my bedroom. At least I'll get some exercise hehe :-)

takde tajuk

2008-07-22T13:41:00.004+08:00

Seperti biasa, waktu rehat tengahari aku tidak ke mana-mana, di ofis saja. Tetiba empat-lima orang staf aku berkumpul tepi tingkap, dok menjenguk-jenguk keluar. Apa hal?

Pandang keluar, nampak ramai orang berkerumun keliling sebuah kereta yang dok parking tepi bangunan ni. Beberapa orang sedang cuba buka pintu kereta, kemudian menarik keluar orang-orang yang berada dalam kereta tersebut, lalu dibaringkan di atas kakilima bangunan. Beberapa orang lain 'mengipas' dengan suratkhabar. Ohh... rupanya orang-orang dalam kereta tu semuanya pengsan.

Tak lama lepas tu, ambulans sampai, dan orang-orang pengsan tu diangkut masuk ke ambulans. Harap-harap ada orang berhati mulia yang tolong jaga handbag, wallet dan kunci kereta diorang ni. Pantang lepa sikit, orang mati accident pun, ada pencuri yang sanggup larikan barang berhaga simati, kan?

Macamana boleh semua orang dalam kereta tu pengsan, siang hari buta ni dalam kereta yang parking di tempat awam? Aku agaklah, mungkin sistem aircond kereta tu ada bocor, menyebabkan karbon monoksida ter-salir masuk ke dalam kereta tu balik. Malang tak berbau, dan sesungguhnya karbon monoksida ni pun tak berbau.

Hmmm... bila last korang pegi servis kereta?

p/s - ini post malas. sebenarnya kepala aku tengah weng ni, tadi kul 9.00 pagi - 1.00 tgh mesyuarat pengurusan bahagian, dan kejap lagi 2.30 ptg - 5.00 ptg mesyuarat dengan konsultan pulak... fenin.

MADS'S CALL

2008-07-17T02:53:00.005+08:00

A few days back, I received a call from Mads. Assalammualaikum - waalaikumsalam etc. Then he said, "Aku nak tanya satu benda la. Kenapa orang suka aku?"

Nak pecah perut aku gelak. Sib baik la aku dah lama kenal dia, so aku tahu bila dia tanya soalan gini, it's an innocent question, walaupun bunyi soalan tu macam sombong bongkak, kan? :-)

What he meant was, kenapa orang suka berkawan dengan dia. So I said, because you are a good listener, you are quite observant and sensitive, therefore pandai jaga hati orang dalam pertuturan. Your mind works in a very warped and mysterious way, so you always come up with interesting things to say, in which conversations will either end up in a serious discussion or in guffaws :-)

I wonder what my friends would say, if I asked them the same question that Mads asked me. Oh well, they'd probably puke first hehe :-)

Anyway, Mads related a funny story that happened recently. Dia ikut another friend pegi dusun buah kat kampungnya, and masa tengah kutip durian, his friend sakit perut, pegi ke bilik air. Tak lama lepas tu, kawan dia datang balik and sambung kutip durian, but Mads's eyes dah buntang pandang kawan dia. Sebabnya, atas kepala kawan dia ialah sehelai seluar dalam. Whaaa....????

So dia tegur la kawan dia, apsal ada seluar dalam atas kepala kau? And his friend raba atas kepala, amik seluar tu dan kata "ooohh.. padan la aku cari tadi tapi tak jumpa... jap ye aku nak masuk bilik air balik" Apparently when he undressed to do his business, dia letak seluar dalam yang dipakai tu atas kepala - I think it is quite common practice to cover your head when you are in a toilet - aku tak pasti, tapi sunnah ke ni?. But aiyohh... gunalah sapu tangan ke, towel kecik ke... toksah ler guna spender yang kau baru tanggalkan kejap tadi tu! Eeeewww.....!

Aku gelak giler sampai semput terbatuk-batuk. Ingatkan Superman je yang sanggup tunjuk seluar dalam dia kat orang hahaha :-D

Transgene-huh? TRANSGENESIS lah! :-)

2008-07-14T02:00:00.005+08:00

Huuu... lama tul aku tak menjenguk ke sini. Things have been so hectic at the office for the past few weeks. Last week of June, me & colleagues conducted a 4-day inter-department seminar. Rutin, 2 kali setahun, dah 3 tahun kami buat, tapi setiap kali lepas kursus, mesti pancit punya hehe. Habis je kursus, aku terus demam 5 hari, selsema & batuk teruk, sampai la ni pun dok batuk lagi.

Anyway.

Aku dah habis baca novel tu. Alaaa...yang aku sebut dalam post sebelum ni la. Dah lama dah habis baca, cuma tak berkesempatan nak tulis komen lantaran masalah kesihatan yang tidak mengizinkan aku berbelog. Chewah! Kira OK gak la penulisan BM aku ek? :-P

Tajuknya Transgenesis : Bisikan Rimba. Penulisnya Amir Husaini. Terbitan PTS Publications.

Kiranya aku ni baru je mula minat membaca novel Bahasa Melayu dalam setahun-dua kebelakangan ni. Jadi mungkin aku tak boleh terlalu kritis dalam memberi pandanganlah, sebab tak banyak pengalaman lagi kan. Tapi satu perkara yang aku boleh katakan disini, aku puas membaca novel ini. Lain dari yang lain, dan kalau nak bandingkan dengan cerita di tv, boleh masuk kategori CSI jugaklah, dari segi pengisiannya. Dan aku memang suka CSI! Huuhuuu!

Temanya, ada sains fiksyen-misteri-thriller-islamik-alam semulajadi. Cerita ini digarap dengan kemas, bermula dengan prolog yang macam takde kena-mengena, oleh itu membuat kita tertanya-tanya siapakah 'atuk' dan 'Ammar Qusyairi' tu? Tapi obviously ada kaitannya, sebab 'atuk' tu yang bercerita tentang kisah Flora. Aku dah belek prolog dan epilog beberapa kali, tapi aku masih tak boleh teka siapa 'atuk' tu sebenarnya. Haaa... this gives you an idea of how mysterious the story is hehehe :-)

Basically, tema utamanya ialah bio-teknologi dan genetik. Aku takmoh citer banyak, kalau nak tau, korang kena baca sendiri novel ni hehe :-) Tapi sinopsisnya kata "Teknologi memindahkan genetik haiwan dan tumbuhan kepada embrio yang diklonkan daripada manusia sudah ditemui... subjek eksperimen yang terbebas dari makmal mula membunuh orang awam..." Hmm... cerita ini ditulis berdasarkan fakta saintifik, dan tak mustahil teknologi ni memang sudah ujud atau akan ujud dalam tempoh beberapa tahun lagi. Manusia nak jadi tuhan!

Jalan ceritanya teratur walaupun plotnya mak aiii... berbelit-belit macam ular sawa. Baru je nak predict ceritanya jadi 'A', tapi tetiba cerita jadik 'B' pulak. Itu yang membuat pembaca geram dan nak terus membaca sampai habis. Aku suka cara penulis menerapkan nilai-nilai islamik dan nilai kemanusiaan dalam ceritanya, jadi bukan setakat membaca 'cerita kosong', tapi ada pengajarannya juga. Aku kira novel ini bukan saja sesuai untuk bacaan orang dewasa, tapi juga sangat sesuai untuk bacaan remaja (young adults).

Kenapa aku kata macam CSI? Sebab penulis obviously membuat research yang banyak sebelum menulis cerita ni, jadik setiap 'ke-pelik-an' dapat diterangkan dan boleh diterima akal. Aku mulanya cuak juga, sebab background aku bukan sains jadi mungkin aku susah nak faham. Tapi what I like is that the scientific facts are explained in such a way that it doesn't make non-science people feel stupid huuhuuu! Satu lagi, penulis banyak memberi 'soalan' dalam jalan ceritanya, memberi stimulasi minda kepada pembaca. I loike!

I don't know about you, but when I read a good book, I sometimes actually visualize the story. Well, this time around, bukan saja visualize, tapi ada masa yang aku baca waktu tengah malam, I could actually smell the scent of 'kenanga', which is the trademark of one of the main characters. Seram! Tak, aku tak gila, but my imagination sometimes does run a little on the wild side hehe :-D Kalau dijadikan drama atau movie ni, I can just imagine the computer graphics that will go into it, sulur pokok tetiba belit kaki orang etc, mesti menarik kan?

Kudos to Amir, for being brave enough to venture into a somewhat 'new' genre of malay novels. Tak banyak novel sains fiksyen di pasaran, tapi mungkin lepas ni aku akan cuba cari novel sebegini. Aku harap Amir akan sambung lagi kisah Flora ni, nampaknya macam ada banyak angle yang boleh dikembangkan lagi. Flora terus menetap dalam hutan? Datin Kay dapat ke lepas dari penjara? Buraquzzaman terus memburu Flora? Yang Ixora tu plak, apa ke 'he?

Dalam puji-puji ni, ada juga benda yang aku nak tanya. Kalau Flora ni klon manusia dan digabungkan dengan DNA tumbuhan, dia punya sistem reproduktif macam mana? Dia dah remaja, kalau reproduktif macam manusia, dia datang haid ke tidak? Kalau Flora boleh beranak, aku nak cadangkan nama anak dia - 'Florette' hehe :-) Tumbuhan perlukan klorofil untuk fotosintesis, tapi kulit Flora tidak berwarna hijau pun? Eh, tapi ada jugak pokok bayam yang daun kaler merah, dan kobis daun kaler ungu, tu kira klorofil jugk ke? Isk... fenin. Ni nak kena tanya sendiri kat Amir Husaini lah.

Cuma satu je la yang aku paling tak puas hati. Toloooonggglaaahhh.... Amirrrrr.... siapa 'atuk' tuuuu??? Tension aku, sebab sampai la ni aku masih tak dapat teka! Hahaha!

p/s - aku cuba upload gambar kulit buku ni, tapi blogspot malam ni mengong sket. Anyway korang leh tengok gambarnya kat post aku sebelum yang ini. Better still, visit the author here.

IQRA' !

2008-06-23T00:17:00.003+08:00

Errr... actually this post's title is a bit premature hehe :-)

Spent the better part of today reading this book, but with all the interruptions from my pesky (haha!) nephews, am now at page 247, and the suspense and mystery is gripping! Will write a sort-of review soon. Yelah, siapalah aku nak tulis proper review hehehe can't even write a mono-lingual post in this blog! *LOL*

Anyhow, there aren't too many science fiction-drama-mystery novels written in Bahasa Malaysia, and so aku sungguh teruja membaca novel baru ni, hot out of the oven youuuu! And IMHO, very well-written and well-researched.

Go get your copy! MPH ada, Popular pun ada.

TODAY

2008-06-20T07:45:00.003+08:00

Age is just a number.

Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number. Age is just a number.

Age

just

number.

Ya mon, age is jes' a numbah!

Happy XXth Birthday Jie.

[ Haha! kenapa tak tulis nombor :-P ]

btw, who came up with the idea of setting fire to your food huh?

RESPECTABILITY OF A (only married) LADY

2008-06-14T17:42:00.004+08:00

Lewat petang Jumaat, sambil aku pegi punch card, aku sapa Mai yang juga sedang bersiap nak balik.

“Have a good weekend. Apa plan hujung minggu?”

“Thanks puan. Err... pegi kenduri En. Shah kawinkan anak kot. Puan pegi ke?”

Aku dah tahu si Shah buat kenduri hujung minggu ni, tapi “Hmm... saya tak dapat kad jemputan pun.”

“Oh, saya pun tak dapat kad. En. Shah kata dia bagi kad jemputan untuk orang kawin aje, untuk yang bujang, dia tampal kad dekat notice board aje.”

Oh. Aku terkedu.

Begitukah pandangan masyarakat melayu kepada seorang perempuan tanpa suami? Disamakan dengan budak muda berhingus yang bujang? (*disclaimer – bukan semua orang bujang itu berhingus hehe...) Tak layakkah seorang perempuan tanpa suami mendapat jemputan untuk hadiri majlis keramaian seperti walimah?

OK, OK, mungkin juga sebenarnya Shah tak suka aku dan memang taknak jemput aku pun kan hehe :-) Aku langsung tak rasa kecil hati, for whatever reason yang dia tak beri kad lah. Things like this is too petty to bother me, banyak benda lain aku nak fikirlah. Tapi selama ni aku tak pernah ada masalah dengan Shah, atau dengan sesiapa pun dalam department aku. Rasanyalah.

Cuma. aku pelik. Mengikut norma, sebagai pegawai senior, aku biasanya akan dapat kad jemputan, especially dari staf department aku sendiri, tak kira la samada dia yang kawin, atau anak/adik/kakak/abangnya yang nak kawin. Yang tak pernah dapat cuma kalau bapaknya yang nak kawin lagi hehe :-)

Adakalanya kalau dari staf department lain, aku sekadar kenal gitu-gitu je orang yang menjemput. In which case, aku dijemput kerana aku pegawai senior dan sebagai tanda besar hati dan hormat dari orang berkenaan. Dan ada antara majlis tersebut yang aku hadiri, sebagai tanda balas hormat kepada orang yang menjemput. Kalau tak hadir pun, mungkin dikirim buah tangan, sebagai tanda menghormati jemputan tersebut.

But this time around, bukan saja yang berkenduri tu staf department aku yang level lebih rendah dari aku, tapi kenduri tersebut diadakan dekat dengan bangunan pejabat aku, maksudnya tak ada isu tentang distance lah.

So putting aside the possibility that Shah really had no intention to invite me (haha!), then what conclusion can I draw ?

One – Shah terlupa beri aku kad. Yeah, right.

Two - harga kad mahal dan tak berbaloi beri aku kad kerana untuk satu kepala saja. Tapi kalau aku hadir, tak rugi langsung sebab harga hadiah atau ‘salam kaup’ aku pasti lebih mahal dari harga hanya sepinggan nasi minyak yang aku akan makan, as opposed to harga makanan untuk satu staf yang bawak 5 ahli keluarganya.

Three – kalau bagi kad pun mungkin aku tak datang sebab aku janda. Datang atau tidak adalah soal kedua, tapi kalau tak jemput, sah-sah memang aku tak datang, kan?

Four – in Shah’s eyes, I do not have the respectability of a married lady, who earns it by virtue of her husband.

I think it’s the fourth reason.

Unless and until we are rid of this kind of malay mentality (or is it asian mentality?), women will always be regarded as second class citizen whereby her position in society depends on her male counterpart. No wonder the divorce rate is so high these days, and some women in good positions carreer-and-financial-wise opt to stay single. Because no self-respecting woman wants to be regarded as second class if she has indeed proven that she is an independant first class person.

Syukur tak semua lelaki berfikiran begitu.

Having said all that, I do still want to marry and have my own family. It’s what nature intended anyway. But I do wish we as a society, try to break from the mouldy mould of judging and generalizing (unmarried) people, and see an individual for who he or she really is.

Amin.

Oh, terkeluar sikit dari topik, tapi perasan tak, sekarang ni orang dah jarang beri bakul telur atau joran kepada tetamu. Selalunya orang bagi kek, coklat, gula-gula, cupcakes, jelly. Dulu orang jawa suka bagi sebekas jajan kerepek etc, la ni semua orang dah ikut, bagi satu goodie-bag penuh dengan bermacam benda, termasuk la tuala kecik, kipas, cermin kecik. Minggu lepas untuk satu walimah tu aku dapat set sudu & garfu, dan satu walimah lagi aku dapat key-chain. Go figure!

BANDUNG... & ALSO JAKARTA (Part 2)

2008-06-13T23:38:00.000+08:00

Long overdue second post of my Bandung & Jakarta holiday...

Petang on the second day tu, habis shopping in Bandung, we drove to Jakarta. The journey took about 2 hours, ocassionally passing by beautiful landscapes of terraced sawah padi bukit. Sampai ke Jakarta dah malam, so we just had dinner and called it a night.

Third day, we started out early to Tanah Abang. Manusia macam semut, begitu ramai sekali, busy, busy. As KakZ says, locals shop according to their status, because the price of goods greatly varies from one place to the other. Tanah Abang is where the lower income group go. Shops sell stuff similar to that in Pasar Baru, at even cheaper price. Dina borong lagi telekung & tudung. Aku beli telekung untuk Ibu & kain pelikat untuk Abah. We bought some nice blouses, as cheap as Rp50,000 (abt RM17.50).

Macam biasa, aku pun tukar tune sket, cakap indon "waduh mahal banget ni mas, dikurangin lagi, bisa ya?"

And that cheeky-faced chap behind the counter said "tak mahal la, Rp20,000 je makcik"

Hey! Who you callin' "makcik" huh? huh? "Amboi, dah pandai cakap melayu ek?"

"Yalah makcik, ramai orang Malaysia berbelanja di sini loh"

Hmmph.

I felt a bit disturbed though that at a few of the shops that I bought stuff from, the shopkeepers ended the conversation with "hati-hati Ibuk bawa wang dalam tas tangan, nanti dicopet". Uh-oh.

Poverty is a fact of life there. Asal kereta berhenti je kat traffic light, mesti diserbu dengan orang-orang menjual macam-macam benda, dari suratkhabar ke jajan dan air botol, even strawberries (di Bandung). It was worse in Jakarta, ada ramai juga 'pengamin' - peminta sedekah. Dari budak kecik seusia 4-5 tahun, ibu mendukung anak, sampai ke orang tua rambut putih yang cuma duduk di atas divider dan hulur tangan bila ada kereta berhenti dekatnya.

Felt like crying one time, watching this family with 3 little kids, duduk beralaskan suratkhabar di bawah kolong satu flyover, the parents feeding the lil 'uns from sebungkus nasi. Kids being kids, nampak ceria saja walaupun berbaju lusuh dan tak berkasut. KakZ kata, most probably malam nanti pun depa akan tidur di situ, it's a common scenario. Oh ya, banyak juga 'bencong' (betul ke perkataan ni?) - tranvestites - dengan eye shadow biru, kasut tinggi & payung kaler pink, datang ketuk tingkap kereta, minta duit. Alahai ngeri.

After Tanah Abang, we moved on to Mangga Dua where prices are slightly higher and people from the middle income group come to shop. We found more shops selling office apparel, and this time around, aku pun borong 4 pairs of suits.

Again, "Ibuk, yang ukuran gede harus ditambah sepuluh ribu (Rp10,000) lagi" Isy, cucuk mata tu kang haha!

"Ibuk maunya yang ama celana atau rok?" Rok? Rok? Apa kebendanya rok tu? "Ini, yang bawahannya" Laa... kain rupanya. Vocab aku belum cukup, nanti kena belajar lagi dari Yanti pembantu rumah aku hehe.

Aku suka Mangga Dua, ada banyak lagi variety of stuff. Handbag cantik-cantik and nampak macam ori, nampak je laaa... It's another shopping heaven for artis-artis atau mak andam, methinks. Ada banyak kedai jual kain lace cantik, ada kedai jual rambut palsu etc. We bought kebaya material yang ada kerawang cantik, dipadankan dengan kain batik silk. Also material yang ada sulam riben, untuk baju kurung. Ha, kalau ada mem yang badan 'gede', kena minta material kebaya untuk ukuran 'gede', otherwise the position of the kerawang will 'lari'.

We stopped by a little shop to buy foodstuff - jajan yang pelik-pelik macam kerepek bayam, kerepek pisang dengan cheese, kerepek belut (errk!), kerepek usus ayam (double errk!). Aku jumpa jugak 'jangek' yang selalu Abah sebut tu, tapi tak lalu nak makan sebab jangek ni kerepek kulit lembu, eww...!

Malamnya, Mr.Joe & KakZ ajak ke tempat shopping for the upper class people pulak. "Korang tengok je la, tak mampu nak beli pun". Cheh! KakZ ni... hehe :-)

So we went to Senayan City mall. Mak aiii.... ramainya security guard depa, kereta nak masuk kat entrance pun dah kena scan, kalau kereta cermin tinted, depa siap buka pintu nak tengok siapa ada di dalam. Ada valet parking, and nak masuk lobi mall pun, kena pass by security check lagi, siap ada pintu metal detector macam kat airport, and handbag pun depa bukak. I wonder what they are really scared of? Mungkin sebab banyak matsaleh kat situ kot, takut ada anti-west bombing ke haper ke.

Anyway, sekadar cuci mata je la, lagipun harga barang lebih mahal dari di KL! Ada satu perfume yang aku suka, harga di Senayan City tu mahal RM50 dari harga KL. Dan ada handbag yang aku dah intai di One Utama (I love Braun Buffel!) harganya RM900+, tapi di Senayan jadik RM1100+. Ya udah, pulang aja yuk!

Posting aku ni asyik dok citer sal shopping, kan? Sebenarnya aku ni bukanlah kaki shopping sangat pun. Itulah kelemahannya pulak bila berjalan dengan orang, sebab KakZ dan Dina kaki shopping, so kenalah ikut rentak diorang. Aku sangat berterimakasih di atas hospitality dan bantuan MrJoe & KakZ, jadinya trip kami tu begitu mudah dan selesa. They are very nice people, and I hope I can repay their kindness someday!

Tapi, aku tak berapa puas sebab ada benda-benda yang aku plan tapi tak menjadi. Kalau ikutkan aku sendiri, bila travel, aku lebih suka experience the local culture, rather than mere shopping. Aku teringin nak makan local foods, like bakso yang ori di sana, tapi KakZ tak kasik, takut sakit perut. Tu kira nasib baik je la dapat minum es alpukat tu hehe :-)

Aku teringin nak pegi visit angklung factory di Bandung, perhaps catch a show. Aku plan nak pegi tengok tempat handicrafts, tapi Dina tak minat langsung. Aku teringin nak pegi spa yang best dan murah di Jakarta - for about RM60, you can get a 3-hours package, complete with sauna, tangas, urut (full body, face & head massage), lulur, boreh, masker, mandi rempah & mandi susu. Mana nak dapat kat KL camni? (It would cost at least RM350 in KL)

Nantilah, insyaAllah aku akan pegi lagi, tapi kena cari travelling companion yang lebih sekepala dengan aku hehe :-)

TUKAR KERETA

2008-06-05T13:36:00.002+08:00

Aku bawak kereta Toyota Vios. Roda empat. Fuel tank capacity = 42 liter.

Satu minggu sekali, aku isik penuh tangki = 1.92 x 42 = RM 80.64

Satu bulan = 80.64 x 4 = RM 322.56

Sekarang?

2.7 x 42 = RM 113.40 seminggu x 4 = RM 453.60 sebulan.

Mahal nak mampus!

Harus kena tukar transport aku nih, dari roda empat ke roda tiga.

Cantik tak my dream car sekarang ni? Bubuh rambu-ramba sket, ala-ala letak spoiler gitu la.

Kumpul duit sket, boleh upgrade dari roda tiga takdak horse-power (sebab kayuh sendiri) kepada roda tiga yang setengah horse power macam 'bajai' ni. Bunyi enjin 'kepeh-kepeh-kepeh'. Memang la pakai petrol, tapi satu tangki penuh baru 5 liter kot.

Hmm... tapi kalau pakai roda dua kayuh sendiri bagus gak kan? Tak payah la naik beskal bodoh tak bergerak kat gym tu. Jimat duit bulanan gym, banyak exercise, cepat kurus!

Tapi alaaa... leceh la. Ofis aku takde shower. Takkan nak attend meeting dengan berpeluh busuk-busuk plak. Poning palo den...

PARLIAMENT DUTY

2008-06-03T03:09:00.002+08:00

Parliament Duty sucks *bleargh*

For those not in the gomen, every time the parliament is in sitting, all ministries will draw up a roster for it's officers (and officers from it's agencies) to attend the sitting as an observer cum 'stand-by sally'. Main duty is to take note of issues affecting your ministry brought up during the sitting (especially hot questions from the opposition... huuuhuuu!), and to report such issues to the minister, and if required to do so, to seek the necessary info for the minister to use in his answer/rebuttal.

Bab hok kije tu, no problemo. Yang sucks so much is the boredom of having to sit on my tush all day long, listening to mundane voices reading out their answer/ presentation, and all the while I'm thinking "banyaknya keje kat ofis yang aku boleh siapkan ari ni, if only I don't have to be here!"

Bored out of my skull. Bored!

Boring sebab kali ni kena duty kat Dewan Negara. Kalau duty kat Dewan Rakyat, best sket sebab banyak interaction from both sides of the dewan, including comments from hybrids of primates haha!

Sib baik jumpa kawan lama, yang kebetulan duty on the same day.

Yang telah belanja aku minum masa breakfast... hehe :-)

Satu benda yang paling tak best tadi, tapi benda ni jadik luar dewan la. There were people smoking cigarretes in the cafe, which is right next to the dewan. Allooooo... parlimen yang gubal & luluskan undang-undang 'no smoking in public places', tapi kat parlimen sendiri yang orang buat derk tentang undang-undang tu.

Cakap tak serupa bikin? Adeeehhhhh....

BANDUNG... & ALSO JAKARTA (Part 1)

2008-06-01T01:46:00.012+08:00

The Bandung trip was great shopping at bargain prices... and also an observation of contrasting lifestyles.

OK, the original plan was for 6 of us ladies to go to Bandung, check into a 3-star hotel and spend the days shopping to our hearts' content. But since us cheapskates (haha!) wanted to get the el-cheapo AA tickets, the booking was done well in advance (November last year!), and by the time we actually were supposed to go, they've all dropped like flies, tinggal aku ngan Dina je. I was a bit sceptical nak pegi berdua aje, but Dina had a friend working in Jakarta, and him & wife generously offered to host us. So we ended up spending 2 days in Bandung & 2 days in Jakarta, where we stayed over at their house, cool!

Bandung Airport

Mr. Joe & KakZ met us at Bandung Airport, terus bawak pegi makan nasi padang - maklum le flight takdak makan. Nothing like the nasi padang we get in KL la weh. Sodap hingga menjilat jari! Plate after plate of lauk, they really piled 'em up. A dear friend mentioned 'es pokat' and I was really curious to taste it, so I ordered. Rupanya avocado milkshake tinged with chocolate, simply delish! The whole time that we ate out, itu ajelah air yang aku order hehe :-) Asked the waiter what the ingredients were, so semalam aku cuba buat sendiri, sedap gak. Nanti karang aku letak resepi 'es pokat' a-la Jie, ok?

Delish food!

Habis mentekedarah (Dina makan dua pinggan!), we went to Cibaduyut, the leather footwear heaven. Since we had just arrived, and feeling like millionaires (literally, millions of rupiah mah!), kitorang pun lupa diri la tengok kasut cantik-cantik, rasa nak beli semua hehe :-) I bought a pair of ladies boots, nice! Harga? Half the price of what it would cost in KL.

We checked into the very nice Hotel Jayakarta, 4 or 5 star, I'm not sure, standard room rates at Rp600,000+ (abt RM230). Nice pool with a jacuzzi on the side. First time watching Indon tv. Less censorship IMHO, but their adverts are kinda cool, I like!

Counter at the hotel

The next day, we headed out to Pasar Baru, where M'sian makciks shop for telekung & tudung, and M'sian bakal pengantin shop for kain lace, hand-made wedding cards & doorgift knick-knacks.

Murah giler, the exact same telekung I saw in Jalan TAR priced at RM270, was a mere Rp220,000 - tak sampai pun lapanpoh hengget. Tapi pelik ah, telekung ada macam-macam kaler & sulam yang sarat, telekung budak even dari kain yang bercorak bunga. We bought telekung from the 'katun paris' - parisian cotton, katanya. Nice soft cotton embroidered lace, tak panas, and cantik sulaman 'bodir'nya - border/edging.

We found a shop selling pantsuits for officewear, good material & nice designs. Dina bought 3 pairs, at Rp150,000 each. Yelah badan regular size, senang ah nak carik. Aku punya, tokey kedai tu kata "Ibuk, yang ukuran gede, tambah lagi sepuluh ribu". Aku nak tergelak ada, rasa nak tampar pun ada. Mentang-mentang la pakai kain lebih sikit, kena extra charge le pulak haha! But seriously, the material used is very nice walaupun takde jenama. Merely about RM50-60, kalau kat KL maybe RM150 onwards la.

Oh ya, tawar-menawar harga ni, syok jugak. Aku pun tukar tune sket, belajar cakap indon. "Brapa arganya mas? Waduh mahal banget! Dikurangin ya mas, 15 (Rp150,000) ajak" KakZ dah setahun kat sana, so fasih la. Yang bestnya, penjual semua tak marah kalau dah tawar tapi tak jadi beli. Cuba kalau buat gitu kat Petaling Street, paling kurang mesti kena maki punya.

Aku memang nak beli kain lace, sajalah nak cari lace yang 'subtle' design untuk buat baju dinner. Unfortunately semua kedai lace yang aku masuk, jual jenis design garang macam baju pengantin punya. Ada juga kedai jual kain langsir, cantik! Tapi memandangkan AA yang kemot cuma allow 15kg of baggage, excess kena RM15 per kg, so lupakan ajelah nak beli kain langsir yang berat tuh. Benda 'wajib' lain, biasalah, tudung jenis ready-made-sarung-aje tu.

Lepas Pasar Baru, pegi pulak Cihampelas, the jeans heaven. Apa jenama kau nak, semua ada! I bought 2 pairs of Lee Cooper, Dina borong 4 lai Levi's. Original or fake? Entah, aku pun tak pasti ekeke... :-D Tapi aku pernah dengar orang sebut 'asli-palsu'.

All the while, we traveled around in Mr.Joe's supir-driven Toyota Highlander. Hmm... kalau tengok kenderaan kat jalanraya, separuhnya MPV/SUV mewah, separuh lagi kereta buruk kemek yang cat dah mula tanggal. Jauh sangat bezanya. Kalau keta yang middle-range macam Vios aku tu, jadik teksi Bluebird aje hehe :-)

Motor banyak juga, but mostly locals naik 'angkot' atau 'mikrolet' - vans converted into minibus. Atau naik 'bajai' - a hybrid (ewah!) between a motorcycle and a carriage, so jadiklah kenderaan kecik beroda tiga untuk mengangkut sorang supir dan dua orang penumpang. Kalau penumpang saiz gajah, aku rasa muat sorang je kot. Oh ya, pedati atau kereta kuda ada jugak, dan kalau nak naik kuda untuk jalan-jalan pun boleh.

Aku tak terperanjat dengan trafik kat sana, sebab masa pegi Cambodia ari tu, trafiknya lebih teruk. Tapi si Dina sepuluh kali sekejap asyik mengucap tengok kereta yang jalan rapat-rapat, memotong kiri-kanan. Aku dah berbelas tahun driving pun, rasanya tak berani nak bawak keta kat sana. Sungguhpun gitu, KakZ kata kat sana jarang berlaku accident. Mungkin drivers there are more careful & sabar dari KL drivers kot?

Dari dalam kereta tulah, aku observe realiti kehidupan. Banyak orang susah di Bandung. Asal kereta berhenti aje kat traffic light, terus diserbu dengan orang yang menjual macam-macam benda, from newspapers to canned drinks, even strawberries (tempting!). There were buskers too, bawak gitar buruk, nyanyi & harap dapat wang. Kenapa diorang tak cari kerja? Kata Mr.Joe "nak kerja jadi buruh binaan pun kena ada kabel, atau bayar duit kopi Rp20 juta kat tokey dulu, baru dapat keje". Hmm, bersyukurlah kita ada kerja kat sini.

Yang menjaja makanan, bawak kereta sorong satu roda. Sudahlah kena berpanas-berhujan menjaja, terpaksa pulak guna kudrat sendiri untuk tolak kereta sorong tu. Padan la takde orang gemuk kat sana, semuanya banyak exercise, tulang besi urat dawai! It's all about survival.

To be continued...

HOT CHOCOLATE PHILOSOPHY

2008-05-27T16:22:00.003+08:00

Aaaa... cerita Bandung, next instalment okkay. Hari ni nak share satu email which was forwarded by an old friend. Original author, unknown, tapi aku rasa kalau benda baik apa salahnya dikongsi. Walaupun tak dapat bagi kredit to the author, tapi sekurang-kurangnya dia dapat pahala hehehe :-)

A group of graduates visited their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups-- porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain, some expensive, some exquisite--telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: 'Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups, and then you began eyeing each others cups.

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life.

The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us.

God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.

*pondering* how true, kan?

SHOPPING THERAPY

2008-05-20T07:40:00.003+08:00

I'm going holiday-ing in Bandung on Thursday!
Nak makan Mee Bandung & minum Sirap Bandung kat sana, ada jual ke?
Huh, serupa macam aku cari selipar jepun di Tokyo le, haram tak jumpa.

Tengahari kang, nak pegi tukar duit.
Mrasalah, jadi jutawan sekejap!
Jutawan rupiah hehehe...

Eh, nak shopping apa kat Bandung ye?

ALAHAI ABAH

2008-05-14T16:42:00.002+08:00

Hari Ahad tengahari.
Abah, Ibu & aku singgah makan di sebuah restoran.
Adik pelayan yang comel-lote tu ambik order.

Abah : "Pakcik nak ABC ye"

Ibu : "Bagi makcik bihun ladna, sama teh tarik"

Aku : "Saya pun nak ABC lah"

Abah : "Tu aje? Tak lapar?"

Aku geleng kepala.

Abah : "Oder je la, apa tu.. sup hidrolik..."

Aku terus tepuk dahi,

Aku : "Abah, bukan hidrolik la... sup gearbox..."

Belum makan pun, kitorang dah senak sebab gelak kuat sangat hehehe.

Dah habis makan, Ibu tanya abah : "Awak nak oder sup radiator tak?"

Alahai.... Abah den.... :-D

HANDWRITING

2008-05-08T13:12:00.006+08:00

Had a nice chat with a friend yesterday, and among other things we talked about is handwriting. Both of us have been involved in marking and grading exam answer sheets. Dia punya, mahasiswa. Aku punya, mahasitua hahaha :-) I happen to be in the pool of examiners for my agency, so my examinees range from budak kerani baru lepas SPM sampai officer yang dah nak pencen. So jumpa all kinds of handwriting la, yang cantik macam typewriter ada, yang cakar harimau pun ada. Several times I was tempted to just put a very big 'X' over those and just bagi markah 'kosong' je, hmmpf!

Anyway, I recently read an article about handwriting analysis which says that you can tell someone's personality from his handwriting. This science is called graphology. Basically your handwriting reflects how your brain guides your hand while you write. Here's the basics :-

Pressure

How hard you press the pen to paper, reflects your emotional energy. The harder you press, the higher your emotional energy is, and the more successful you are likely to be. Kalau kau jenis yang tekan pen sampai tembus kertas tu, esok-esok boleh jadi Perdana Menteri huuhuuu....

Slant

The slant reflects your emotional response to external forces. Right slant (///) shows that you respond strongly to emotional situations - heart rules mind. Vertical slant (l l l) means you keep your emotions in check - mind rules heart. Left slant (\\\) means you conceal your emotions - cold fish! Kalau tulisan kau kejap senget kiri, kejap senget kanan, mungkin reflect otak yang senget huuhuuu...

Baseline

Baseline is the (imaginery) line where the small letters rest, and it reflects your emotional control and reliability. Normal baseline is slightly wavy. Very straight baseline indicates tense and discipline. Ascending baseline shows optimism, while descending shows pessimism or depression. Kalau tulisan kau very the wavy, you might be emotionally unbalanced. Psychotic! Huuuhuuu....

Size

It does matter! Small writing indicates an ability to concentrate on minor details for long periods of time, and a conservative person. Very large writing shows that you are easily distracted. Kalau tulisan kau kejap kecik kejap besar, kau kena segera berjumpa doktor sebab mungkin jari kau kena arthritis... huuuhuuuu

OK, apply all that to my sample of writing from an earlier post :-

Pressure - agak keras juga, tapi taklah sampai patah mata pensel aku tujah kat kertas hehehe -so a little high on emotional energy
Slant - vertical, so mind rules heart - rational, baguih...baguih...
Baseline - slightly wavy, slightly ascending - otak normal dan agak optimis
Size - moderate - cukup sabar untuk buat crochet, tapi tak cukup sabar buat jigsaw puzzle 5000 keping

Conclusion - okkay la tu! (a-la Saida AF6)

OK have fun analyzing your own writing!

Kalau aku rajin, next aku tulis about a few tips lagi concerning 'writing zones' which reflects imagination and desire, and how to pick a good lover, and his compatibility with yours. Ahaha.... panjang le artikel ni, lain kali la sambung!

* info taken from article by Gary Thomas, an expert who studied criminal justice & psychology. eh, awat hang tak join CSI?

WEIGHT TICKER

2008-05-06T08:12:00.002+08:00

Aaaa.... nampak Ticker kat atas tu? Ha serious ni, kena lose a whole LOT of weight!

Dari minggu lepas dok pikir nih. Aku memang segan sangat nak letak actual weight, biasalah pompuan mana yang suka nak mengaku gemuk kan?

But I figured this is a hell of a push factor. Lagi segan kalau takdak weight loss, atau worse still kalau ada weight gain (na'uzubilLah!). You'll know if this happens... kalau lamaaaa tak apdet weight data la... huuhuuuu...

Why the four-leaf clover? 'Coz I need all the luck I can get, haha! :-)

Wish me luck, people!

RECENT HAPPENINGS

2008-05-04T01:53:00.003+08:00

Blog post yang caca-merba :-)

Had a reunion dinner of sorts dengan 4 old friends, my first friends masa mula kerja back in the late-90s *alamak! rasa tua!* Seronok catching up with latest news. Ada yang dah kurang rambut, ada yang dah beruban di janggut hehe, age is also catching up! Aku? I'm the youngest of the lot, so aku leh eksyen lagi ngan diorang hehe :-) Dinner kat Restoran Rebung, too bad the handsome angkasawan wasn't there *bummer*, but the food is really good and the chef is friendly, although dia paksa some of us to nyanyi karaoke hehe... sumbang!

Talking of eating out - Kelana Seafood has closed down for good on 30th April. Reason? The property which they have been renting all this time has been bought over by Glomac (I think) and will be redeveloped. Kesian. Walaupun food diorang taklah best in the world gitu, tapi boleh tahan gak la. Agaknya kalau pegi makan sana on the last day, ada tak depa bagi bawak balik pinggan mangkuk lepas makan? Huuhuuuu...

Parliament sessions live broadcast - ok ke tak ok? Takut penonton lak confused - tengok persidangan betul ke, atau tengok movie Planet of the Apes? Bigfoot lah, big monkey lah. Yang dulu panggil bloggers 'monyet' tu, sekarang majoriti YB semua dah ada blog... camno? Tulah terlajak perahu boleh diundur, terlajak kata, sama-samalah memberukkan diri sendiri. Apa-apapun, kali ni aku kena duty parlimen lambat sket, 2nd June. Anyone going to be around there on that date? Leh join aku for lunch hehe :-)

Tower of Cancer kat SS3, Kelana Jaya - betul ke? Wallahua'lam, it's being investigated now. But some of mom's friends living around that area memang ada yang kena kanser, two of them passed away recently. Ada satu kes tu, sampai 3 orang yang tinggal dirumah sama, kena diagnosed with cancer within a year. If these cases are related to that communication tower, tak heranlah kebanyakan yang kena tu pensioners, sebab diorang yang akan duduk lama kat rumah masa kita keluar bekerja *sigh*. Is there any Erin Brokovich out there, tolong check sikit, boleh ke buat class action untuk kes ni?

MPH Book Sale in Kelana Jaya - teringin nak pegi, tapi takde bajet la bulan ni. Sebab kat Pesta Buku ari tu dah borong sket, weekend tu pulak borong buku kat Borders *pokai!*

New minister - baru nak rasa lega, tapi rupanya mamat ni lebih agresif dari yang dulu hehehe... aku harap sangat, jangan tabur janji dalam majlis ke atau dalam media sebelum bincang dulu dengan agensi pelaksana, sebab kalau turn out janji tu tak boleh dikotakan, penat kitorang kena hambat dengan public.

My house kat Subang tu, dah dapat tenant baru. Aku dah bagi kunci mid-April ari tu, depa dah pindah masuk. Esok gi collect deposit & sewa bulan Mei, yay! :-D Ya Allah, berilah aku kekuatan untuk tidak melangkah ke Jusco ke KLCC ke Sogo ke, sebaik saja cek deposit tu ditunaikan! :-)

Maiwaibee ada buat sesi pemimpin berjumpa rakyat, last week. Macam menarik gak, sebab dia turut jemput lain-lain Waibee, termasuk Nurul Izzah yang comel tu hehe. Abah kata nak pegi, ibu tak kasik, "nanti kalau kena tahan polis, dengan kita sekali kena bungkus..." Tapi sekarang kat Selangor, depa bukan pembangkang dah, takkan polis nak tahan kot?

Lately ni ada rasa mood agak menurun sket, God forbid, tamau go into that downward spiral thing again! Kena carik aktiviti to fill my time la. Currently trying to read motivational books, selain dari novels je. First attempt - The Secret. Next one will be La Tahzan, insyaAllah. Any other suggestions?

Have a nice weekend, everybody!

CHICKEN SHIT HOTEL

2008-05-01T01:14:00.000+08:00

Half-boiled eggs for breakfast, anyone? At least that's what I asked the F&B staff to prepare for me, and that was what he assured me of getting. But eggs as runny as snot on your first day of having the flu, is surely at most, a quarter-boiled, kan?

Oh hey, look closer... tak payah taruk kicap ke, garam ke, lada sulah ke, lada hitam ke.

My breakfast came with complimentary chicken shit, for that extra ummph!

And you dare call yourself a five-star hotel??!! Memang chicken shit betul la. And that breakfast is the least of my complaints tau.

Udah le dapat bilik yang bau hapak, sampai terpaksa mintak pindah ke bilik lain. Toilet plak tak boleh flush dengan betul. Air paip ada sikit karat. Aircond pun tak berapa sejuk. Masa guests tengah makan, sibuk remind sampai dua-tiga kali "Mam, you have to pay for your guests' breakfast, your room only comes with one complimentary breakfast". Apa, ingat kitorang nak makan pastu terus blah ke? Helloooo.... aku tau le hukum halal-haram, takde nye nak biarkan makanan haram (haram sebab tak bayar) masuk ke tekak dan sampai jadik darah daging tau. Macam ni ke layan tetamu, five star konon, bleargh!

Hah! Grand BuluWave, yang tak grand langsung!

GIMME YO MONEY!

2008-04-28T13:24:00.004+08:00

Driving around the neighbourhood last week, I was kinda surprised to see some new tenants occupying several newly opened shoplots area near my house. In all my years living in Kelana Jaya, this is the first time I've come across the likeness of them.

Two of them are licensed moneylenders.

The other three are bill collector companies.

What does this signify?

*shudder*

God help us all!

RANDOM READ

2008-04-21T21:33:00.005+08:00

Spent a little time at Borders @ The Curve last week. Browsed around, not looking for anything in particular, randomly reading a little here and there. Among the many books I picked at, was a book on autism.

The author says that, when he was in medical school, the disorder affected 1 in 10,000 births in USA. Today, the odds are 1 in 150 births. Yowzers!

What causes autism? Environment? Pollution? Food? Genetics? Could be one of the reasons, or could be all of the reasons, science can't pinpoint the exact cause yet.

Scary.

Bukan scary because autism is shunned, no. An autistic person has every same rights as you and me, and more! But what is scary is how much the odds of affliction has increased in the last 50 years. What is scarier is that we don't know what causes it, thus we have no defense against it. And scariest, there is no cure for it.

OK, that's as far as I got on the random reading. Alamak, potong stim la hehehe :-)

Sorry!

Anyway, ada sorang kakak kat ofis aku, anak bongsunya ada down syndrome, dah belasan tahun jugalah. It's good that she doesn't hide her son, selalu jugak dia minum petang lepas kerja ngan hubs & son dekat-dekat ofis tu. Orang kata, kesian you ada anak cacat. Tapi dia kata, syukur I ada my little boy who will always be my little angel, who will never hurt me in this world, and who will save me in the hereafter.

*sigh*

Jie's current mood : sayu tak tentu pasal

POSITIONS

2008-04-18T13:42:00.004+08:00

Aahh... errghhh... oohhh... hfff.... pfffhhh... aarrghh... heavy breathing

Kejap mengiring... kejap terlentang... meniarap pun ada...

On all fours... tunduk kepala... angkat kaki kanan, stretch it out, yes!

Macam-macam position boleh... ikut kreativiti...

Last-last aku tergolek kepenatan...

Hahaha.... tu bila aku buat senaman pilates kat gym la... korang pikir apa? :-)

Sebenarnya aku dah join gym ni dari tahun lepas lagi, sebab aku nak jadi dari gambo kiri ni jadi ke gambo kanan. Tapi so far... far from reality... hahaha :-)

Gym. Memula tu OK aje... rajin ke gym at least 3 kali seminggu... pilates, machines etc... weekend pulak dance exercise... seronok tau!

Pastu, bulan posa... isk... letih + takde masa + entah apa-apa lagi alasan la, tapi sebenarnya malaaaasss... so aku telah isytihar Cuti Dari Gym Sempena Bulan Puasa untuk diri aku sendiri.

Bulan berikutnya, sambung pulak Cuti Dari Gym Sempena Bulan Raya... bukan setakat bulan Syawal je, melarat pulak sampai Zulkaedah, sampai Zulhijjah, sampai Muharram... sampai sekarang haraaaammmm tak pegi lagi hahaha :-P

OK, sekarang aku dalam dilemma. Tolong kasik idea, boleh?

Gini. Gym A yang aku join tu, di Taman Tun. Rumah aku di Kelana Jaya. Kalau tak jem, aku pecut keta, dalam 4 minit leh sampai. Masaelahnya aku akan ke gym selepas waktu ofis, so dalam kul 6.30 petang onwards, which is peak time kat highway tu. So dari 4 minit jadik at least 20 minit, and an additional 10 minutes untuk tawaf carik parking, sebab gym tu terletak di kawasan yang heavy traffic juga, farking problem parking muuaahaha... (busuknya bahasa aku hari ni!). Kalau dah sampai lambat ke gym, kenalah maghrib kat sana sebab takut tak sempat nak solat kat rumah. Leceh la pulak, dengan berpeluh-peluh tu nak sarung telekung...isy.... Lepas tu balik nanti pun ikut nasib-nasib, kekadang jem, kekadang OK.

So ari tu aku cuba survey kawasan sekitar rumah aku... ada 2 gym, Gym B dah a few years, Gym C baru bukak last year. Aku belum lagi pegi visit, tapi ada kawan yang biasa ke Gym B kata ok aje, tak banyak machines, tapi ada aerobic class & personal weight training. Gym C pulak, aku tengok dari website, macam best. Ada 2 tingkat, satu untuk machines dan satu untuk aerobic, yoga & dance class. Kedua-dua Gym B & Gym C ni dekat sangat, no excuse kalau tak pegi, dan parking untuk Gym C pulak free dan banyak space.

So... aku tak sure, should I :-

(1) stay with Gym A yang aku suka tapi tak convenient menyebabkan aku malas nak pegi, atau

(2) try Gym B yang convenient tapi dah lama, tak banyak machines tapi monthly fees sama dengan Gym A, atau

(3) go for Gym C yang baru & better facilities tapi mahal monthly fees nya?

I must, I must go to the gym again, a.s.a.p!

Tolong laaa.... aku tak mau jadik cam gambo bawah ni!!!!

Cegah Sebelum Parah

Hahaha... :-D

Suggestions, please?

NOVELS

2008-04-13T04:39:00.007+08:00

Spent my lunch hour last Friday at the KL International Book Fair. Takdelah berhajat sangat nak beli buku, memikirkan aku naik tren dari ofis ke PWTC tu. Oh, part naik tren tu OK jer, tapi part kena menapak dari stesyen ke ofis aku dengan menghangkut buku berat... itulah masaelahnya hehe :-)

I'm glad I went on a Friday, tak berapa ramai orang, so oklah boleh berjalan dengan mudah. Tapi bila tak ramai ni, aku pun lama lah belek2 buku, sampai habis waktu lunch pun, baru sempat jenguk a few booths aje. Was contemplating to go again this weekend, but decided not to. Someone was telling me, that last weekend at the book fair was like an ancient mass mating ritual... everyone were virtually rubbing up against each other due to the constricted space haha! Hell, no way am I going to go through that. With my height (or rather, lack of), I'd probably be gasping for oxygen within minutes. Tu belum kira all kinds of odours, especially kalau pegi tengahari... huuhuuuhuuu!

Just as I was looking for the exit, aku ternampak booth Alaf21. Aku pun terus tuju display rack, angkat 3 ketul novel. Masa nak bayar, aku tanya kat cashier tu, "dik, bila nak keluar sambungan Cinta Sang Ratu ye?" Budak tu senyum, "hujung tahun kot... ni mesti peminat Ramlee ni kan?"

Errrkkk.... peminat Ramlee? Ha'ah la, novel 3 ketul yang aku amik tu ialah :-

Yang ni aku dah ada :-

Yang ni aku belum beli lagi :-

Hmm... betul la budak tu kata kot. Aku dah qualify kot, jadik peminat Ramlee Awang Murshid? Err... ada lagi ke novel dia yang aku lupa?

The Author... tunjuk apa tu bang?

Well, like I've said before here, lately ni aku dah mula baca novel melayu. Dulu-dulu baca karya sastera macam A. Samad Said, Usman Awang, Khadijah Hashim, but their books were few and far between. Tapi sekarang, novel melayu agak bersepah jugak. Baguslah ada banyak choice, tapi aku personally susah nak cari novel (or writer) yang memuaskan hati aku.

Ikhlas aku katakan, aku tak minat baca novel 'fluff', mungkin ini lebih sesuai untuk remaja la, memandangkan 'saya bukan lagi ayam musim bunga' (I'm no spring chicken) hehe... Fluff tu macam novel cintan-cintun yang takde 'body' cerita sebenarnya. Ahhh... 'body'. Agaknya sebab tulah aku lebih banyak baca novel penulis lelaki kot. Body. Peewiiiittt!

What I meant was, the novels that I like are ones that are entertaining, and educational at the same time. Sebab tulah ada body, bukan setakat dibuai-buai dengan emotional story je, tapi banyak info lain yang dikaitkan, atau mesej untuk kesedaran awam etc. I hope there's more of this kind of writers in the future. Frankly, so far yang aku pernah jumpa karya gini, cuma dari writers lelaki je.

Just to share la, ada juga novel yang aku beli, walaupun tak mahal, tapi menyesal betul sebab membazir duit aku je. Ada yang sinopsis macam OK, tapi novel hampeh - indah khabar dari rupa? Ada yang banyak typing error - hellooooo.... proofreader tidoq ka? Dan yang paling boring, ada yang tulis novel melayu tapi nak selitkan bahasa inggeris (kenapa ye, nampak gempaq ke?), which is fine as long as you use the correct english la. Sikit-sikit silap tu oklah, tapi banyak yang spelling error dan grammar pontang-panting. Isyy... readers rasa geram tau baca novel gini - helloooo.... editor tidoq kaa???

I wonder if the publishers employ part-time proofreaders or editors... hmm... boleh aku apply.... huuhuuuhuuuu!

MAIWAIBEE

2008-04-13T03:15:00.003+08:00

I guess I owe him an apology, or at least to correct my previous post here. But then, being as disinterested in politics as I am, not surprising if I never heard of him before la kan. Lagipun since dia bukan calon be-end, he wasn't given publicity by the media. Poster dia pun tak sebanyak poster kak pah noli, but there was one giant poster put up near my house. I don't know how his campaign went, only that one day my dad got back from masjid with his campaign flyer (flyer saiz A4 je, as opposed to kak pah noli's booklet of her lifestory), and my dad was suitably impressed with this young chap he met at the masjid.

Anyway, here he is, YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, ADUN Seri Setia, and Setiausaha Politik to Menteri Besar Selangor. I hope it's not too late to say 'Welcome to Kelana Jaya, YB'.

Why the sudden attention, Jie?

Camana nak cerita eh?

I am actually a registered be-end member (hah!). Have been so for a very long time, in fact since they first set up the cawangan here. Abah den kan kojo gomen, musti la join be-end. Tapi tulahnya, masa nak set up cawangan, orang gomen tuo-tuo ni lah bersusah-payah buek kojo, kempen carik ahli bagai. Lopeh tu, masuk taun dopannya, urang tuo-tuo tu somuo kono tondang jang oiii... ajk baru semuo urang mudo, kojo bisnes bagai. Habih manis, sopah dibuang. Tapi miko soba-an laie. Masih datang AGM laie. Tapi tulahnyo, bilo bontang penyato akaun, ado ruponyo dapek duit peruntukan, entah bilo diguno, baki kosooong manjang. Bontang senarai aktiviti pun, umang aiii... ado ruponyo aktiviti, lawatan la, jamuan la, majlis la, tapi takdo satu pun yang kami dijomput atau diboie tau. Camno ahli 'suci hati' cam esei ni nak lokat percayo ngan miko? Abah den, semuo kami la, percayo ngan perjuangan asal-eh be end tu, tapi rasonyo kito semuo tau camno keadaan sekarang ni kan. 'Nuff said.

So OK, rakyat dah beri mandat. Harap waibee-waibee baru ni semua dapat jalankan amanah masing-masing dengan baik. Nik Nazmi (nama glamernya 'Budu'... errkkk...?? haha!) has been a blogger for a long time, tapi aku tak pernah terjumpa blog dia sebelum ni la. But you can check him out here. I think almost all the new waibees have their own blog or website, and I hope these sites will be consistently read and updated, as I'm sure certain segments of the rakyat find it more comfortable to air their opinions, suggestions and complaints etc cyberically (is there such a word? haha!)

I'm impressed at what someone as young as 26 years old, has achieved, and has contributed to society. Aku masa umur 26 tu... siang sibuk keje, malam sibuk karaoke ke makan-makan ke, hujung minggu gi picnic ke roadtrip ke... hampeh! Padan le aku takleh jadik wakil rakyat *LOL*

PICK-UP LINES, NOT!

2008-04-12T02:01:00.003+08:00

Actually, I had a whole other something to write about, but when I read Fauziah's post about pick-up lines, I couldn't resist sharing this story hehe :-) Although... my post will be a little different than Fauziah's, and something of a let-down *sigh*

Anyway, one Friday sometime back, me & Nore decided to meet at The Mall for lunch, then check out the Matta Fair at PWTC. As we were walking around, I did notice a group of foreign-looking guys (young & ada yang hunky-dory, huuhuuu!) watching us, but then I could've been mistaken (perasan!), so buat derk sajork ler. At one point, Nore lagged behind, and when I turned around, one of the guys I saw earlier was talking to Nore.

OK-lah, friendships can crop up in the wierdest situations kan, so being a sporting friend (chewah!), aku just let them chat a while. Lagipun, mat tu hensem, ala-ala shah rukh, body pun cun uhuk uhuk... Tapi isy, lama la pulak. Aiks? Tekan-tekan handphone, minah ni kasik her number to strangers ke? That's uncharacteristic of her. Last-last, I signalled to Nore that we should move along.

Later baru aku get the whole story. Apparently, this guy who approached her, used this pick-up line - "I like your height". Oh ya, wierd as it is, Nore was the tallest girl in our class, while I was the second shortest. So walking around together, mesti nampak comical, bleargh! By the way, I'm never ever gonna get that very same pick-up line la kan... hahaha :-)

OK, sambung. The guy introduced himself as Nizam, a student from Pakistan, now studying in a kolej swasta, working part-time in a cafe. He asked if Nore was married (she's still single, any takers? hahaha... matilah aku kena seligi if she ever reads this post!), about her work and whether she lived by herself. Then he asked for her number. Nore refused, saying that he's too young to befriend her. Mat tu cuba pujuk. So Nore asked for his number instead, buat-buat macam nak save number tu in her phonebook, but instead Nore terus dialled. And you know what, bukan handphone yang kat tangan Nizam (if that is really his name la!) tu yang bunyi, but handphone one of his friends yang berbunyi. (The group actually followed us to the next hall, memang suspicious habis la) Nizam tu dah gelabah. Nore smiled sweetly, and asked what the eff is going on? He said that he had exchanged phones with his friend. What the eff for?

Later, Nore got an sms from the number given by Nizam tu. The sender introduced himself as Nizam's friend, Nizam was going back to Pakistan in a few months time but this other guy is staying on, let's us be friends etc etc. Nore politely replied with a "bugger off!", and thankfully that was the last of that. They chose the wrong person to mess with, haha!

Then, there's this friend, who experienced something similar. She travels to work by train, and one day perasan that there's this handsome foreign guy trying to main mata. She ignored him, but when she got off at her station, the guy followed suit. Mak aiii.... jadik stalker la plak. He approached her and said - "I like your eyes, you have beautiful eyes". My friend being a somewhat makcik laser, responded "thanks, but I'm wearing coloured contact lenses" hehehe... :-)

They guy was persistent, but in a very charming way. He's a foreign student, can we be friends, maybe I can learn more about your country from you, let's have coffee after this etc etc. So she said what the heck, they exchanged phone numbers. And... nightmare. He keeps making missed calls to her phone, expecting her to call him back, but she never did. He sent smses, asking her to call, but she didn't. Then he started to send sad smses, why is she acting this way, he thought they were friends etc etc. This went on for a few weeks. Finally she got bengkek, one night she smsed him "please stop this because my husband doesn't like me getting sms from guys, otherwise my husband will come looking for you". Mamat tu pun bodoss, mana nak cari, kenal pun idak, setakat terjumpa sekali je dalam train, line pun pakai prepaid je kan. But he stopped sms-ing after that la.

OK, moral of the story? Ada moral ke? Huuuhuuuu!

See a pattern here?

I think these guys are just con-men, maybe even illegal, but definitely smart jugak la. Whether they're really students, siapa nak tau? But they are glib and smartly dressed. They target women of a certain age (what age - I leave that to your own imagination hehe), who look single, friendly, independant, with good job & income. Mula-mula kenal-kenal. Lepas tu minta belanja makan. Lepas tu minta belikan barang. Lepas tu minta pinjam duit.... In short, they're looking for a sugar mummy. Hahaha! Matilah aku kena seligi dengan Nore AND Fauziah :-D Ya ampun!

Oh well, itu dua cerita pengalaman kawan-kawan aku, maybe these are just the exception je. Maybe others are genuine cases of friendship, or attraction, or even love at first sight.

Yeaaahhh..... right.

Jie, with the jaded heart, kan? Oh well, that's just me, korang toksah ikut sangka buruk aku ni, okkay.

* btw, I like to spell 'weird' as 'wierd', ok aperrr... :-D

BATIK DAY

2008-04-03T08:15:00.002+08:00

"Zah, esok hari apa, Rabu ke Khamis?"

"Esok err... hari Batik"

Hmm... kalendar dah berubah ke?

Aku ni selalu la kantoi, lupa nak pakai batik pada hari Khamis. I'm not sure if any disciplinary action would be taken against those yang tak pakai batik on thursdays, since gomen dah keluarkan circular untuk mewajibkan pemakaian batik tu. Tapi, remeh la kan? Daripada kejar orang yang tak pakai batik, lebih baik kejar orang yang makan rasuah ke, selewengkan bayaran ke, palsukan tuntutan elaun ke, kan? *LOL*

Yang kelakarnya, prestasi 'berada di ofis' yang sungguh cliche untuk orang gomen tu, somewhat lebih baik dari hari lain. Yelah, bila semua dah pakai batik tu, rasa malu la plak nak berbondong-bondong lepak kat kedai mamak, pasti menarik perhatian orang awam hehehe :-)

Anyway, last Thursday aku sebenarnya lupa lagi. Sib baik la aku carpool, so bila kawan aku tu masuk dalam kereta, dia terus aje tegur "awat tak pakai batik?" Adeeehhh.... terpaksa la aku balik ke rumah, tukar baju. So, lewat 2 minit sampai ke ofis, punch card merah! But I'm glad I did change my clothes, sebab tetiba lak Menteri baru decided to drop in on us! Memang dah tau dia nak datang ke agency aku for briefing by the DG, tapi tak tahu le pulak dia nak singgah kat department aku! Turns out, he knows my boss, because they had at one time worked in the same office, sebab tu dia nak singgah. Kelam-kabut la kitorang, of course when the Minister drops by, the whole shebang had to follow him, including the DG, the chairman, senior officials, political secretaries etc etc.

OK, back to the batik story. Lately ni memang banyak sangat batik creations from all kinds of fabrics and designs from Kelantan & Terengganu. Tapi aku heran, orang state lain, tak reti ke nak buat batik? Of course you need creativity, but the art and technique can be learned, can't it? Tak kisahlah batik dari state mana pun, but the more the merrier la kan. And perhaps it can help control the prices. Bukan semua orang gomen can afford to have many baju batik, sehelai batik silk or crepe yang cantik sekarang ni pun paling murah antara RM250 - RM350. Dah hampir separuh gaji bebudak kerani sambilan aku.

Personally, aku tak banyak baju batik yang mahal. Sebabnya, aku ni manusia ganas where baju kurung is concerned. Kalau pakai baju kurung silk, kejap-kejap aje dah tetas atau rerak jahitan bahagian tepinya hehe... unladylike kot cara aku, kejap duduk kejap bangun. Cheh! :-)

THE PEOPLE HAVE CHOSEN

2008-03-09T22:18:00.004+08:00

Seems like so many bloggers have written about PRU12 already, so I'll be brief with my piece. Still reeling from the election results. Not that I'm such an avid fan of politics, au contraire actually. But being a (itsy-bitsy) cog in the vast wheel of the gomen machinery, I think I've seen enough damage done, to think carefully many times before I cast my vote. Alas!

So this time around, no two thirds for the pakleman seats. Lepas ni rajin-rajinlah YB ke pakleman okkay. Can't afford to act truant macam biasa, takut nanti masa nak vote apa-apa, tak cukup nak dapatkan majority la pulak. Dulu masa aku gi pakleman, YB aku pesan "saya nak lepak kat luar ni, nanti masa pembentangan kertas usul yang sebelum turn saya, kamu datang panggil saya ok". Udah le yang biasa ada dalam tu pun, samada tidoq, ketuk-ketuk meja atau pass-pass nota macam budak sekolah. Tu belum kira pak-pak lawak yang suka menyampuk dengan lawak yang tak kelakar, tanya soalan bodoh atau bagi komen yang men-diskriminasi wanita atau bangsa lain. Hampeh.

Aku rasa le, neraca kini dah jadik neraka, mungkin sebab selalu nor senget sebelah. Pastu cara kempen ari tu tak ngam. Dolu-dolu boleh le cakap jerit-jerit macam tong kosong, memang dok cakap benda kosong pun. Pastu, banyak nor rangka dalam almari, termasuk rangka yang bersepai kena bom. La ni, information is at the tips of our fingers, tabley nak tipu-tipu dah. Kalau info tak keluar kat mainstream media pun, leh dapat through internet, sms, mms dalam sekelip mata aje. Takyah gi Kota Bharu pun, hari-hari dapat dengar ceramah Husam. Sebenarnya kena tackle minda pengundi, bukan emosi je. Even pengundi kat kampung yang takde internet pun, jangan lupa yang anak-anak depa, kerabat-kerabat yang balik ngundi tu, mungkin akan sampaikan macam-macam info, kan?

So many new and yet unknown faces have been chosen. Tapi betul ke intan terpilih, atau zircon zhulian aje? Kat tempat aku pun, dua-dua yang terpilih tu orang muda belaka. Yang sorang tu setiausaha dsai, yang sorang lagi tu cameraman korek korek korek. Belum ada track record lagi, and yet orang undi depa. Why? Betul ke orang undi depa, atau lebih kepada orang taknak undi lawan depa? Apa-apapun, toksah tanya aku undi siapa, sebab undi adalah rahsia... hikhikhik :-)

There's gonna be alot of changes in the political scene. I wonder if such changes will also be extended into gomen departments or organizations? Bagus jugak, aku pun dah tak larat nak asyik ikut rentak 'wahyu dari langit' ni. But whateverlah, sekarang kita dah stuck with the people's choices for the next 5 years (thereabouts la), so let's hope those sweet promises are delivered.

DAH BERSAWANG...

2008-03-05T03:41:00.003+08:00

Hmm... dah berhabuk bersawang dah blog aku ni hehehe... Nak buek camno, kesibukan kerja melanda hingga aku terkapai-kapai hampir lemas dah ni. Ni pun curi masa sementelah mata aku degil sangat taknak tido malam ni. Esok plak ada meeting... aduuhh.... harap jangan menguap-nguap macam beruang lapar la masa meeting tu nanti.

Kenapa sibuk sangat ni Jie?

Hmm... dah waktu-waktu kritikal ni, biasalah, orang gomen kalau boleh nak disuruh bekerja 25 jam sehari, kan? Mrasalah aku macam doktor kena on-call. Kami pun kena standby selalu, kat mana ada event mantan menteri nak launching projek, kenalah kami pun turut hadir, kena ngekor pungkok dia. Melawat kawasan le, sampaikan hadiah le, rasmi pameran le, pecah tanah le, ntahapehape lagi. Macam le kitorang ni takde keje lain! Geram!

HANDPHONE MASUK AIR

2008-01-23T20:57:00.000+08:00

I'm so not in the mood!

Tengahari tadi, masa tengah tengok tv, dengan penuh chanteknya, si kenit Danish telah mengambik handphone aku dan memasukkannya ke dalam my mug of steaming hot tea, debush! Bila aku terjerit, dia toleh kat aku dengan muka cheeky sengih-sengih tak bersalah.

Adusss... there goes my savings alotment for this month's gaji. Nak marah pun, budak tu baru umur setahun lebih. Nak bebel kat mama dia pun, mama dia gelak je. Isy, sama je muka cheeky anak-beranak tu hehehe :-)

Hmm... aku ni bab handphone, jarang sekali bertukar. I know banyak gak orang yang tukar handphone 3-4 bulan sekali, to get the latest model etc. Tapi aku cuma beli baru bila yang lama dah hopelessly rosak. Aku dah baraikan phone tu tadi, cuba lap dan keringkan setakat yang boleh. Test simcard kat sis's phone, simcard OK. Tapi phone tu memang out ler.

Macam tau-tau je esok dapat gaji. Bleargh!

Baru je beli simcard Happy tiga hari lepas, double bleargh!

SMALL MATTERS DO COUNT

2008-01-23T00:16:00.000+08:00

Hallamak, ketinggalan keretapi betul ler aku ni, dah hujung Januari baru nak buat first post for year 2008 hehehe :-) Bizi manjang setengah mampos kat ofis tu, balik umah pun takde mood nak membelog. Malam ni pun, blogging courtesy of paklah's declaration of public holiday for Federal Territory, errk! Alah, bukannya suka sangat dapat cuti pun, sebab keje melambak, ni pun ada bawak balik homework nih. Cuma aku lega sebab tak payah tension traffic jam seperti tahun lepas-lepas. Jam yang bukan saja sebab perarakan thaipusam, tapi juga sebab biasanya bila orang Selangor cuti, ramai yang akan mai shopping kat KL, dan dalam pukul 5.00 tu berebut-rebut orang Selangor shopping ngan orang KL keje nak balik serentak.

Anyhow, tengahari tadi masa sembang ngan Kak Wa, aku saja joking kata alang-alang dah cuti, aku nak gi nengok thaipusam di Batu Caves. Kak Wa jeling, pastu kata, "boleh tapi dapat dosa syubahat la". Aiks? Gi nengok pun kira syubahat ke? Aku yang dangkal bab ugama ni, tak berapa pasti la kebenaran kata-katanya tu. Cuma aku tahu, sebagai seorang Muslim, aku tak boleh melakukan 'amalan keagamaan' ugama lain kerana bimbang menggoyah aqidah. OK, itu memang aku terima la. But does that include observing other people? Entahlah, mungkin ada orang yang lebih tahu, boleh beri pendapat?

Aku terfikir, sekarang ni banyak small matters yang kita take for granted dan tak fikir panjang sebelum membuatnya. For example, niece aku masuk konsert tadikanya, buat tarian india. Dipakaikan costume ala-ala sari, complete dengan 'bindi' (usually known as 'nandek', although this is not the right term) di tengah dahi. Correct me if I'm wrong, but tanda di dahi tu, bukan ke a symbol of the hindu faith? Tak sepatutnyalah ada di dahi anak Muslim. Satu lagi, budak sekolah rendah, kalau nak cakap janji, akan kata "promise, cross my heart and hope to die". Adeehhh... cross the heart ni, christian punya amalan, tapi tulah bebudak mana nak tahu, terikut-ikut kawan non-muslim.

Meraikan kawan-kawan dari pelbagai ugama, no problem. Islam menggalakkan kehidupan harmoni selagi tak menggugat aqidah kita. No hal la kalau nak penuhi jemputan ke open house Raya Cina, as long as jangan makan-minum benda yang haram. Tapi, untuk bersama-sama mengacau periuk memasak nasi manis di pesta ponggal bagi mendoakan murah rezeki di musim menuai akan datang, boleh ke? Untuk sama-sama melepaskan burung dari sangkar supaya burung terbang ke langit membawa doa, boleh ke? Untuk sama-sama mencampak buah limau bagi membuang sial, boleh ke? Nampak macam small matter, saja join untuk seronok-seronok aje. Tapi.... boleh ke?

Keluar makan, expansive restaurant, hip and trendy urban yuppies la konon. Oder satu dish, oh ada letak wine, no problem small matter je. Pesan pada waiter tu, "please tell the chef to absolutely NOT use alchohol in this dish". OK aper? Tapi tulahnya, segala periuk belanga sudip senduk yang diguna, mungkin masih ada saki-baki alkohol dari dish yang dimasak sejurus sebelum masak makanan kita. Small matter ke? Kalau makan di gerai pula, sejauh mana kita tau yang kue tiau goreng yang cantik berkilat dan sedap tu, takde dicampur lelemak haiwan najis? Yelah, kalau itu adalah resepi kue tiau gorengnya, takkan dia nak ambik inisiatif pastikan pelanggan muslimnya tak makan benda haram? Tanggungjawab kitalah sebagai muslim untuk pastikan makanan kita halal, kan?

Small matters je, kan? But don't you think that these small matters DO count?

I realized then, that it's time to read up, listen to good ceramahs, converse with knowledgeable people, in order to learn to avoid all these seemingly small maters but potentially hazardous to our akhirat lives.

THINGS I DO WHEN I'M BORED ENOUGH, AT HOME

2007-12-25T18:07:00.000+08:00

Well, the title kinda says it all, kan? :-)

Read

Actually, I do this all the time, bukan masa boring aje. It's the first thing I'll do when I have some free time, until I get bored of reading lah. OK you brainiacs out there, you probably read intellectual books or medical journals or engineering magazines whatnots. But for me, pleasurable reads are novels. Aiyoh, how else to create escapism from my boring life? haha!

I grew up on a staple diet of story books, works by Enid Blyton, then kids adventure series like Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and anything else I could get my hands on. I remember the first adult-level novel I read in Std.5 - Under The Sun by Agatha Christie, and I think I ended up with a whole collection of her books. Progressively, novels by Virginia Andrews, King, Kellerman, Cook, Clancy, Asimov, Grisham, Patterson, Ludlum, Brown dan entah saper-saper lagi. Lately, nudged by a conversation with a dear friend, I started reading works by local authors. Ya, tuan-tuan dan puan-puan, saya baca novel melayu! I'll leave it at that for another post, OK!

Play sudoku

Been playing sudoku for quite some time, have some sudoku books yang dah fully completed pun. In fact, I always keep a small sudoku book and a pen in my handbag, for those bits of boredom macam masa tengah tunggu queue kat bank, or even while waiting for the lembab elevator - I usually wait for this one particular elevator which goes all the way down from my office to the basement carpark.

Ya, ya, sekarang boleh download sudoku terus ke dalam handphone, aku tau. But somehow there's a certain satisfaction in filling up numbers in the puzzle on paper, puas! Tried playing the other game tu - kakuro - tapi kantoi sebab aku tak tera maths hehehe :-)

Blog & surf

Well, that's the answer to the question as to why my blog updates are so irregular, haha! Oh OK, aku blog bukan masa kebosanan aje, but when I'm bored of reading and playing sudoku, it's the next thing I'd do lah.

Watch astro

I don't watch much tv, and sometimes watching astro only makes me even more bored! Balik-balik benda yang sama. Satu exception lah - I watch CSI whenever I can, even repeats, walaupun kekadang bosan gak bila semua kes dalam dunia ni depa dapat solve, tipu betul. Actually watching too much CSI is unhealthy for your tv viewing habits la, you start to think too critically bila tengok cerita lain, selalu dapat cari points yang kantoi. "Eh, kalau dia kena tikam macam tu, sepatutnya blood spatter bentuk gini, dan sepatutnya rigor mortis dah set in, kan?"

Crochet

Huuuhuuuhuuu... macam makcik-makcik! But yes, I do crochet when I'm bored enough, or when I'm very upset. It's an old thingy I picked up from arwah nenek dulu - simple stitches she calls 'tali air', and later I actually took up crochet as a co-curriculum activity one semester in Form 2, can't believe it myself haha! So then I learned to read the crochet diagrams, and later self-taught the techniques and instructions - 8ch, ss into first ch, 6ch (1tr, 3ch) 7 times, ss to 3rd of 6 ch - gibberish, rite? :-) Well, that's the center part of a traditional irish rose pattern, in case you're wondering.

Why crochet when I'm bored or upset? Well, crochet involves a lot of repetition of stitches. When I start a new project, I'd be counting each stitch and looking at my instructions all the time, so this occupies my mind. After I get familiar with the repeated sub-patterns, my hands would be crocheting, but my mind would be free to meander and ponder. It's great as a calm-me-down, kalau tak caya, cubalah! Good for muhasabah time also, at least takdelah termenung aje, and ada la jugak hasil kerjatangan, walaupun sekecik coaster alas gelas aje hehe :-)

Main susun toy cars dengan Haziq

Hmm, I think Haziq's going to outgrow this phase soon la, so I'll have to find some other thing to do. Or maybe, I ajak Danish plak susun toy cars dia heheh :-)

Ketuk piano

Ketuk piano tua yang dah sumbang bunyinya sebab dah lama tak tuning, sebab dah takde siapa minat nak main piano tu pun, so buat haper nak tuning kan?

Actually, my sis yang lama belajar main piano ni. I only learned for about a year or two masa sekolah rendah dulu, lepas tu stop sebab masuk boarding school. Kalau ketuk pun, main lagu bebudak aje le hehe :-) Yang paling glam aku boleh main pun, lagu yang dok putaq kat blog ni sekarang, Ballade Pour Adeline. Hampeh!

Talk to my pet turtles

I have two - Kembang & Kechut. Masa beli, dua-dua about the size of a 50sen coin. Tapi yang sekor tu suka duduk dalam air and he's grown much bigger than the other one, yang suka duduk atas batu. Hence yang berendam tu is Kembang, and yang kering tu is Kechut. I don't know why they are of different sizes now, maybe satu male dan satu female. Or it could be because whenever I drop their food pellets into the water, si Kembang tu terus ngap dulu, so he eats more than Kechut does.

What do I say to my turtles? Haha, macam-macam ada, but rest assured I don't do this often. Hey, I'm no loony!

Zzzzzzzzzzz.............

That's the grand finale to end anyone's boredom, kan? * Yawwnnnnn.... *

:-)

HUMAN AGAIN

2007-12-13T03:33:00.000+08:00

I've just finished reading 'Bunga-Bunga Kemboja', a novel by a local author, Aina Emir. Correction. I finished reading it about a half hour ago. Tears are still running down my cheeks. But somehow, I've got to write this down right now.

Dah lama aku tak menangis sendirian begini. The last time I cried, at least I had a dear friend lending me some counsel, of sorts. Itupun, lebih kepada aku mengeluh dan mengadu nasib, meluah sedikit cuma perasaanku dan kegusaranku.

For some time now, I've always felt jaded inside, emotionally. Tiada sayu, tiada cinta, tiada bahagia. Like my heart had crystallized and remained frozen like that. I know it's just my body's emotional self-defence. If my heart is frozen, it's not easily breakable, kan? Tak ada siapa nak jaga hati aku, jadi hati aku kena membina perisai sendiri untuk protect dirinya.

But I don't know why, reading this novel made my heart go gooey all of a sudden. I can't pinpoint the reason. I just felt so emotional. I suddenly feel human.

Thank you for bringing back some emotions into my jaded heart.

Tears are still running down my cheeks.

Uh-oh. I better stop, before the tears ruin my lappie's keyboard.

ME & MY MYOPIA

2007-12-06T01:26:00.000+08:00

I was blogrolling, and came across this funny post about a guy and his myopia, hehe :-) Reminds me of my own perils of the rabun kind. Although, not as severe la.

How did I get the myopia? Hmm... tak tau la nak kata bagus atau tidak. It's because sedari kecik, aku minat sangat baca buku cerita. Bila mak suruh tido, aku akan masuk tido dan padam lampu bilik, tapi lampu di luar bilik pasang, so aku akan terus membaca dalam kelambu dengan lampu samar-samar tu, dalam keadaan baring terlentang. Bila mak aku perasan dan tutup lampu tu, I found another solution. Torchlight! Tulah, padan la muka aku, cepat rabun hehehe

The first person who noticed my shortsightedness was my piano teacher. She noticed that at the start of a song, I would be sitting ramrod straight (memang diajar macam tu), but as I played on, I'd be leaning more and more forward sampai hidung nak cecah buku. Oh, I was in Standard 4 then. How come my classroom teacher tak perasan ye? Kot sebab I always sit right upfront in class. Nerdy huh? Hahaha :-D

So there I was, pint-size 10 years old girl in dark blue pinafore, hair braided on the sides, and a heavy black-rimmed spectacles perched on my nose. Weh, time tu mana ada frame cermin mata yang stylo, mostly bingkai bulat warna hitam macam specs Cikgu Bedah in the movie Adik Manja. Lens pun kaca tebal, takdak yang high-index punya, kiranya sampai berlekuk la batang hidung sebab specs berat hehehe :-)

Aku taklah careless sangat dengan specs tu, lagi pun girls don't get into fights like boys sampai pecah specs. Yet, I manage to get new specs every year, sometimes twice a year. Kadang-kadang aku terpijak, terhempap, atau terdudukkan (tak careless konon!), kadang-kadang orang lain terpijak. Atau terjatuh berderai. Later on ada lens plastik, tapi masa tu the choice was this - lens kaca yang senang pecah dan berat, tapi nipis sket, atau lens plastik yang tak pecah, ringan tapi tebal dua kali ganda. Well, as I was blind as a bat (still am! exaggerate je tu hehe), aku takmoh le plastik yang tebal giler tu. Sebab bila orang pandang dari depan, nampak mata aku jadik kecik benor.

Bila masuk matric, hmm dah self-conscious la plak. So pakai contact lens. First time nak cuba pakai sendiri, aku tercucuk bijik mata.... adeehhhh..... pedih ya amat, aku nangis sampai bengkak mata. 3-4 hari aku rasa serik, tapi lepas tu sayang plak kalau tak pakai, sebab dah beli mahal kan... duit scholar lagi tu hahaha :-)

Tapi tulahnya, rutin untuk contact lens ni tersangat la menguji kesabaran. Pagi sebelum pakai lens, kena basuh tangan bersih-bersih, tak boleh ada habuk sikit pun, buangkan cecair disinfectant dan tambahkan cecair nuetralizer, biarkan 10 minit. Lepas tu bilas dengan cecair saline, baru boleh pakai. Petang lepas kuliah, kena buka contact lens, rendam sekejap dalam cecair saline, pastu cuci dan gosok dengan jari menggunakan cecair daily cleaner (macam sabun), bilas lagi dengan saline, pastu rendam dalam cecair disinfectant. Macam tu la rutin setiap hari. Fuh! Housemates aku masa tu suka gelakkan aku... "Jie nak keluarkan biji mata dia.... Jie nak cuci mata dia...." Ada gak kengkawan lain yang give-up pakai contact lens ni, sebab tak kuasa nak buat semua tu.

After a few months, mata aku start sakit, merah dan banyak keluar air mata. Doktor ingatkan conjunctivitis, tapi dok tak baik-baik. Last-last sorang optometrist bertemu jawapan yang tepat. Aku allergic dengan salah satu bahan dalam cecair disinfectant tu, ghopernyer. Tapi aku still nak pakai lens, so camno? Hmm... tak boleh guna chemical disinfectant, terpaksalah guna thermal disinfectant plak. So aku still kena cuci lens dengan daily cleaner, tapi lepas tu rendam dalam cecair saline, dan gunakan satu alat elektrik 'heating unit' untuk mengnyahkumankan (is there such a word?) contact lens aku. Lagi le housemates aku gelak, "Jie nak rebus mata dia..." Ah, tak pedulik! Yelah masa tengah meningkat remaja ni kan, tak kisah besusah-payah kalau rasa boleh nampak lawa sket hahaha :-) Hmmm.. I vaguely remember a camping trip that I went on masa student dulu, how the toot did I disinfect my lenses masa tu ye? Kat mana nak cucuk plug untuk heating unit tu?

There were a lot of funny (and painful!) incidents with the contact lens. Kalau lens tu hilang sebelah, no problem, boleh tempah 'sebelah' yang baru. Masaelahnya, ego dan sombong, tak mau nya pakai specs balik... so pakai je la contact lens tu walaupun sebelah je. Of course kena jalan slow-slow sebab lantai nampak tak rata, dan pernah tergolek-dok dekat tangga dorm. Bila time nak membaca, alahai penglihatan out of focus, so kena pekup mata yang tak ber-lens tu, dan baca guna mata yang ada lens je.... might as well wear eye-patch like a pirate, yeeha! Eh, bukan aku sorang je buat tau, kengkawan lain pun camtu gak hehehe

Tertidur masa pakai lens... ini sampai sekarang pun jadik. Akibatnya, lens akan 'lari' dari posisi asal pada mata hitam, dan merayau ke... mana-mana kawasan lain. Adeehhh.... selalunya kalau terjaga dari tidur dan rasa mata tak nampak sebelah, cepat-cepat kena scan tempat tidur, kot-kot lens tu terjatuh. Kalau takde, terus mengadap cermin, tarik kelopak mata atas dan bawah, bagi bijik mata terjegil, gerak-gerakkan biji mata ke atas, bawah dan sisi, pastu carilah lens tu! Pedihhh....pedihhh....

Masalah lens kering pun ada gak. A friend had an embarassing moment, masa tengah cakap dengan lecturer, contact lens dia kering, lalu tertanggal dan terpelanting ke atas buku yang dia pegang di depan lecturer tu. Both of them stared at the errant lens for a moment, pastu lecturer tu gelak giler tergolek-golek, while my friend malu sampai nangis. Haiya...

My most painful experience with contact lens was this one time when I was helping my mom in the kitchen, aku dok potong cili kering untuk dimesin. Lepas tu aku mandi dan basuh tangan bersih-bersih before putting on my lenses. Ok, kan? Wrong. I didn't know that dried chillies had the staying power mengalahkan sabun. Memula tu ok je, but after about half an hour, my eyes started to water, makin lama makin pedih. I tried to take them lenses off, tapi tetiba pedihnya menusuk sampai aku tak boleh bukak mata. Camana? Nak keluarkan contact lens tapi mata pejam takleh bukak. I cried (involuntarily!) for a long time, really cried, and finally the tears washed away whatever that the chillies tainted my lenses with. Sampai sekarang aku beringat, not to touch stuff like that if I'm gonna put on or take off my lenses soon after. Hey, plus point - I never had to do the dried chillies anymore, till now. Ngelat!

Teringin tak, nak pakai contact lens kaler-kaler? Hmm... aku teringin gak, something unique like maybe green or grey. Tapi lupakan sajalah. Sebab power specs aku tinggi dan astigmatism pun tinggi, so as it is pun aku takleh pakai lens biasa, kena pakai toric lenses, much more expensive than regular lens (seribu lebih) and langsung takdak yang fancy kaler-kaler. Cheh!

A few years back, my optometrist recommended hard lenses instead of softlens, because hard lens are, well, hard, so they help to reshape the cornea and halt the astigmatism from getting worse. And it does work. My specs' power (aiyoh, so layman!) has been stable for these few years, and in fact decreased a little. The downturn is that it's not very comfortable (initially), much smaller in size and thus easier to lose, and has a shorter wearing period, as oxygen doesn't travel well through it so you need to take it off to allow your eyes to'breath'.

And so, sampai sekarang aku dok pakai hard lens ni. I did consider doing Lasik, but it's expensive and not without risks, and doesn't guarantee a 20/20 eyesight. Oh come on Jie, alasan! Sebenarnya, aku chicken hahaha :-) Penakut! Specs ni pakai sekali-sekala je, bila dirumah, atau bila emergency. Kalau suatu hari aku ke pejabat dengan memakai specs, you can be sure it is because aku bangun lambat dan tak sempat nak perform aku punya 'daily contact lens ritual' la tu. Or, conjunctivitis, hahaha :-D

950.54

2007-12-06T00:55:00.000+08:00

Lucky number?

Hah! I wish :-P

That's how much it costed me to service my car last week. RM950.54. Takdelah banyak pebenda sangat pun, tukar segala macam minyak, tukar parts macam spark plug, battery etc, not like there's any particular damage ke apa ke. Labour costs je dua ratus lebih.

Yeah yeah, major service memanglah mahal sikit. But my car's just a cikai 1.5cc Vios, godamek!

I'm officially broke, for now.

*sigh*

DRAGON BOSS

2007-11-23T00:23:00.000+08:00

A colleague returned to his desk after attending an inter-department meeting, and suddenly burst into tears. A male colleague. That got the rest of us jarred. Apa hal plak mamat ni?

"Aku tahan marah ni, bengang giler!"

Aikk, takkan la bengang dalam meeting, sampai nangis?

"Tak pernah seumur hidup aku, orang panggil aku 'bloody fool' depan muka aku!"

Huuhuuuuhuuuu.... padan le bengang giler.

Entahlah, bagi aku, lebih baik staf hormat kita, daripada takut kat kita. But I guess, memang ada boss yang suka jadik Dragon Boss - mulut berapi, hehehe. Bukan saja jadik Dragon Boss pada staf sendiri, tapi staf orang lain pun ditempelak sesuka hati. Bangang, bodoh, tongong, bengong, bengap, lembu, keldai, idiot, bloody fool, stupid shit, semuanya kerap menghias vocabulary dia masa meeting.

Not nice la laidat! Where is your common courtesy? Being the leader of the pack does not entitle you to treat your underlings like shite la. I wonder what he's like at home? Anak bini pun kena 'stupid shit' ke agaknya?

He should be reminded that what goes around, comes around. But should anyone say that to him, sure kena se-das !!@#??*@!! kan?

U STUDY MANA DULU?

2007-11-18T04:24:00.000+08:00

I was having a nice evening meal with Jai the other day at the newly opened Subway in Kelana Jaya. We were yakking away and tucking into our foot-long sandwiches - kemaruk sangat nak makan sandwich, tamak haloba, order foot-long, pastu terbelahak nak mengabihkannya, last-last bungkus bawak balik hehehe :-) Suddenly a guy came near our table and called out to Jai. Oh, rupanya kawan Jai masa student days dulu. Mamat tu pun datang join our table, no hal la tu.

Anyway, they started reminiscing about their student days in the US of A. Well, I've been hearing so much about Jai's student days before this and vice versa, it's always a fun conversation. But this new guy's way of conversing makes it sound like so oh exclusive, US of A has got better malls than over here, US of A has got better university system, US of A has bla de blardy bla bla.

Suddenly he turns to me and asks, "U study mana dulu? Overseas jugak ke?"

And me with muka poyo nak mampus, jawab, "Ha'ah, UK"

That got him interested, "Ye ke? UK kat mana?"

Me still with my poyo-ness, answered, "UK of M"

Hahaha.... terpinga-pinga plak mamat tu, sambil Jai terkekek gelak. Meanwhile, aku dengan selamba katak continued devouring my foot-long sandwich.

Come on la people, just because a long time ago, when you were barely 18, you were given an opportunity to study abroad, toksah la dok berbangga sangat. It's not where you went, BUT who you are today, that really matters. No doubt masa diberi peluang belajar overseas tu, the sponsors akan cari students yang dirasakan ada potensi. But that doesn't mean semua yang lain yang tidak belajar overseas tu kurang bagus. Even Jai pun masa SPM, result dia kureng dari aku, tapi rezeki dia, dapat tawaran belajar ke sana, so good for her la kan. Dah, dah, korang jangan ingat aku jeles plak ek... hehehe...

Anyway, bukannya tak ada di kalangan kawan atau senior aku sendiri pun, yang 'terpilih' ni, yang kantoi. Dok overseas 4-5 tahun, balik tanpa ijazah, susah nak carik kerja dan sampai sekarang berhutang berpuluh (atau ratus?) ribu ngan JPA ke, MARA ke, Kementerian Pelajaran ke.

Banyak faktor la yang boleh sebabkan kantoi tu, but that's beside the point. Aku cuma nak kata lagi sekali, it's who the person you are today that really matters la. Ada jugak yang walaupun kantoi, but managed to prove themselves otherwise. Ada yang sambung belajar dengan duit sendiri, ataupun kerja from scratch sampai dapat hidup selesa - after all paper qualification is not the only thing that matters in the workfield, kan? Terpulang kepada rezeki masing-masing.

Ada jugak macam kes senior aku, balik dengan ijazah, tapi tak pernah kerja. Sebab balik aje, terus kawin dan laki tak kasik kerja. Hok ni kawe maroh ni. Cuba bayangkan kalau peluang belajar tu diberi pada student lain dari keluarga yang miskin contohnya, mungkin sekembalinya nanti student miskin tu akan dapat kerja yang bagus dan akan menjadi titik permulaan untuk membangunkan taraf ekonomi dan pendidikan keluarganya di kampung, kan?

Anyway, I guess this guy is an exception la. Sebab so far he's one of just a few people I've met yang macam tu. Coming from a boarding school, I have many friends who received their tertiary education overseas, including my close buddy Jai (USA) and my bosom buddy Millie (Eire). A number of my colleagues also studied abroad, as do various friends (you know who you are) I've made along the way, most of whom are very humble and down to earth people (pujuk balik ke ni hahaha).

It was an entertaining evening for me, nontheless :-)

SAWAN D'ANGKASAWAN

2007-11-07T01:27:00.000+08:00

Quoted from Utusan Online :-

" Muszaphar kahwin sebelum 2009

KUALA LUMPUR 5 Nov. – Angkasawan pertama negara, Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha hari ini mengumumkan untuk menamatkan zaman bujangnya sebelum 2009. Bagaimanapun, doktor bedah ortopedik Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) itu tidak memberitahu siapakah gadis pilihannya.

‘‘Saya kini sudah berumur 35 tahun. Saya sudah bersedia untuk berkahwin. Saya berharap untuk berkahwin sebelum 2009,” katanya kepada pemberita di bangunan Parlimen di sini hari ini. "

Oh, you teaser, you! At least give the girls some idea of what their chances are, if there is any chance la. Tak mustahil ada yang beriya nak masuk meminang ni, Doc!

Jang, ramai bonar yang tergilo-gilo minat kat wak ang ni ha, kek opis den pun ado surang minah sasau yang buek gambar wak ang jadik screensaver. Bilo baco kato wak ang dah sedio kawin, punyolah suko dio tergolak-golak. Den rasolah kan, minah tu dah terkono penyakit baru, sawan-d'angkasawan namo yo.

PUSARA

2007-10-25T00:49:00.000+08:00

Kebiasaan aku, pagi hari pertama Syawal, pasti akan menemani Makngah dan Achik mengunjungi pusara arwah atuk dan nenekku. Tahun ni, timing off sikit, dan akhirnya kami cuma dapat berkumpul dan ke sana pada Ahad lepas. Suasana jauh berbeza dari suasana awal Syawal, sunyi sesunyinya. Hanya kami berempat sahaja yang ada, selain dari pekerja penjaga tanah perkuburan itu.

Anyway, sambil lalu-lalang, aku sempat survey sekeliling. Nampaknya trend terkini, buat binaan pusara dengan batu granit hitam, atau batu mar-mar bermacam-macam warna, biru merah hitam perang kelabu hijau maroon. Ada yang binaannya dibuat bertingkat, jadi 3 tingkat separas pinggang aku. Diatasnya disusun batu kecil licin hitam atau kelabu berkilat, very decorative. Batu nisan pula samada mar-mar yang sama atau batu sungai yang besar yang dilekatkan 'plaque' untuk tulis nama etc. Banyak juga yang ditanam rumput karpet di atas dan di sekelilingnya. Dibahagian kepala, dibuat tempat duduk untuk pengunjung. Aku cuba bersangka baik, mungkin untuk memudahkan pengunjung yang ada masalah kesihatan, seperti sakit lutut, kot? Ada juga beberapa pusara yang diberi bumbung, dan ada juga yang berpagar siap berkunci padlock, kenapa agaknya ye? Oh, ada juga yang dihadapan batu nisannya diletakkan 'vase' mar-mar, untuk diisi sejambak bunga oleh pengunjung. Silap haribulan, macam tugu pulak.

Hmmmm.

Aku sempat berhenti seketika di satu pusara di baris hadapan pusara atukku. Nampaknya agak semak, jadi aku buang sikit rumput-rampainya, mungkin jarang dikunjungi kot. Aku sedekahkan bacaan al-Fatihah. Aku baca namanya. Seorang mualaf cina berusia 27 tahun. Mungkinkah tak ada saudara-maranya yang mengunjunginya?

Lantas aku terfikir. Dalam keadaan aku sekarang, bila tiba masaku nanti, adakah sesiapa yang akan mengunjungi pusaraku?

Perasaanku jadi sunyi, sesunyi tanah perkuburan itu pada pagi itu.

Tiba-tiba aku sebak.

BERBAGI SUAMI

2007-10-19T09:10:00.000+08:00

Anyone caught the Indonesian movie 'Berbagi Suami' aired over Hari Raya on Astro? This movie was released last year I think, and there were some public protests against it because it 'portrays poligamy & Islam in a negative way', or some sort of similar comment la. I haven't been to the movies in ages, so I really haven't kept up with the movie scene.

Anyway, this movie is, well, different, to say the least. I guess the director Nia Dinata, a female nontheless, wanted to explore different sides of the issue, and in doing so had unearthed real-life situations which she highlighted in the movie, ugly as they may. So the movie ended up as a bit provocative, not unlike Yasmin Ahmad's movies as they are received here. But hey, life is NOT a bed of roses, and I bet the movie is as honest and close to the real happenings around their community.

Anyway, it's based on the lives of three different women in various poligamous marriages, and how these women actually have met each other in their daily lives without even realising that they all suffer from the same predicament.

The first lady, Salma is from a religious and well-to-do background. She is a gynaechologist in her middle ages, married to a Pak Haji, has one son, and is rich enough to have equestrian as her hobby, hah! She only found out about her honey a few years after her husband married the woman, and initially couldn't accept it. But her husband had proven that he is a good provider and that his love & attention towards her & son hadn't changed despite marrying a second wife, and so as time goes by, Salma learned to accept the second wife, and later, a third wife, while suffering in silence.

Salma's patience paid off in the end, when Pak Haji fell ill and decided that he wanted Salma to care for him. Their son also got closer to Pak Haji, and near his demise, Pak Haji sempat pesan to the son not to marry more than one wife, "nanti pusing (pening)" hehehe :-) Very last scene at the cemetary, rupanya there was a fourth wife whom nobody knew about. Hebat Pak Haji ni... and by that I mean he probably conducted his polygamous business in the best way and never menyusahkan one family over another, so that they all lead happy, almost separate lives.

The second story takes place in a poor area, where Siti came to Jakarta to stay with her uncle's family (uncle already had two wives and several kids) and ended up as the third wife. Everyone live 'acceptingly' although under very poor conditions in the same house. Somehow, second and third wives became very close, so close that I think they ended up as lesbian partners la. Bummer for the husband's manly reputation!

When the husband brought home a fourth wife, it was the last straw for Siti, and she ran away from home, together with second wife and her kids. Ha, yang ni toksah ikut ler, tak mampu tapi sibuk nak poligami. Tak reti bagi kasih-sayang, tau nak main blasah bini aje - the scene for Siti's 'first night' was censored on Astro, but she was taken without foreplay, and in a standing position against the bedroom door (don't ask me how I know haha!), which must've been quite rough for a virgin. Do you blame her for how things turn out later then?

The third story is about Ming, a beautiful chinese girl working in a popular restaurant. Koh Abun, the cook cum owner of restaurant desperately wanted her for himself, despite already having a wife and daughters. Yang ni pun toksah ikut le, dia boleh 'pau' staf dia right under his wife's nose, as the wife is the cashier in the same restaurant. Anyway, I kinda get the idea that Ming became a second wife for the sake of easy money. Later on her ex-boyfriend (who is now a movie producer) offered her a movie part, she became restless and wanted freedom. What she didn't expect was that Koh Abun would leave her, and took his family to migrate overseas. So much for that marriage!

Anyway, it was an enjoyable and somewhat provoking movie, but don't watch it with kids la, nanti depa banyak tanya plak. I don't think it's all negative there la, in fact in the first story, Salma is a very strong lady who acts more with her head than with her emotions, and she persevered through the strength of her religious belief. Walhal kalau dia nak blah boleh aje, dia doktor pakar kan, tak risau pasal duit pun. Siti's action pun, bagi aku bagus jugak. No, not the lesbian bit la aiyoooo..... but the bit about making changes in her life, moving on kerana dah nampak laki tu bukannya bertanggungjawab sangat. Each to his own la.

So kalau ada sesiapa nak amik tips, tonton ler, pastu fikir-fikirkan balik, ye?

MASUK KEJE LEPAS RAYA

2007-10-18T10:53:00.001+08:00

Mula masuk kerja dari semalam, tak ramai, cuma 8 orang staf. Aku sorang ajer officer yang kerja semalam, kira jadik 'Pengawal Pusat' la. Rasa sunyi betul bila semua orang duduk di cubicle masing-masing, pastu masih dalam mood Raya, enjin belum panas untuk bekerja. So depa pakat lepak depan tv kat ruangan pelanggan. Hampeh! Hehehe baik tengok tv kat umah aje.

Tapi tulahnya, nak marah pun tak kuasa. Macam typist tu, kalau takde officer yang kasik draf surat untuk ditaip, depa pun takdak keje, so takleh marah la kalau depa lepak tengok tv, kan? At least depa dok dalam ofis, tak gi merayau. Aku plak dok mainkan koleksi lagu entah haper-haper yang ada dalam pc aku, asalkan hilang sunyi.

Yang paling bosan, bab makan la. Isy.... semua restoran di keliling tutup, termasuk food court ofis aku dan food court ofis sebelah. Yang bukak kat deret kedai bawah tu hanya restoran satay. Siapa nak makan satay pagi-pagi buta? In the end semua orang sarapan kat the only restoran yang bukak, sebuah restoran mamak yang agak kejauhan sikit. Orang bertali-arus sampai tak menang tangan mamak tu melayan. Makan tengahari pun kat situ jugak. Hmm... bebudak ofis ni, baju depa dah lekat bau kari sampai ke petang!

Petang, tak tunggu lama, cabut tepat kul 4.30. Malam tu dah ada plan nak ke rumah paktuo. Dia ni aku panggil 'Self-Appointed Buapak'... maklum le dia abang, so adik-adik semua termasuk abah aku, kena hormat dan dengar cakap dia. Eh OK aper aku gelar dia gitu, some of my cousins lagi ler, panggil dia 'Agung' terus! Hmm...? Apa menatang 'buapak' tu? Korang tak pernah dengar? OK, nanti boring-boring aku tulis post pasal Adat Perpatih plak, ye?

MY NEPHEWS

2007-10-16T03:43:00.000+08:00

Hmm... lama dah tak post gambar bebudak nakal ni.
Here are their latest pics!

Danish smiling for the camera

Brrr.... it's cold!

Haziq, mat enter frame

Sivaji the Boss! Hehehe

Brothers' sharing time

SYAWAL

2007-10-16T03:40:00.000+08:00

1 Syawal
2 Syawal
3 Syawal
Same as any other day.

I GOT IT FROM MY MAMA

2007-10-07T06:30:00.000+08:00

Hah! Despite what the gals say in Will.I.Am's song, not EVERYTHING about your body will be inherited from your mama. Me and my sis don't look much alike. We're not of the same height and stature either. I have a friend who has fair skin and is nicknamed 'amoi' while her sister have skin quite dark that she's fondly called 'achi'. One sister may have thick curly hair, quite the envy of the other siblings. Hmm, mamaries too. Not all sisters would be similarly endowed, regardless of how overflowing their mama's cup is (pun intended, ppbbbtttt). Sometimes features 'skip' a generation or two, mak ayah petot je tapi anak menggalah macam great-grandpa.

Oh, by the way, I just thought of this topic while watching MTV earlier. Hmm... maybe it's not such a good idea to watch MTV at daytime during the fasting month, yeah? Hahaha... tau takper.

Anyway, we've all got our share of prides and peeves about our physical appearance. My personal peeves are regarding my height (or rather, lack of, bleargh!) and also my weight (or rather, excess of, double bleargh!). Of course once in a while, when I see beautiful people, I'd wish for bigger eyes, prettier smile, mancung-er nose etc etc, but otherwise I'm happy with what He has granted me.

But I think a more popular concern among ladies is regarding their bodies. And thanks to mainstream media, commercialism and hollywood endorsements i.e the song on my sidebar, most women want to be stick-thin slimmer, have bigger gravity-defying boobs and rounder perky derrierres (betul ke ejaan ni?). Sedangkan sepatutnya yang being promoted is health, not beauty semata-mata.

Anyway, amongst the individual features, there is more emphasize on the breasts size, methinks. A friend got so excited when she was a few months pregnant, she called friends up to tell us that she's "finally getting out of the A-cup category" and hurriedly bought new B-cup bras. But a few months after delivery, she was back in A-cup, and we all (her including) had a great laugh over her 'cup' adventure hehe :-)

Once while shopping with Milly, we were buying bras. She sighed and said she hated her flat chest. So I said, why don't you get one of those push-up bras, it would surely improve appearances. She sighed even louder, and said, "my dear, the one I want to impress is the one who will see me without a bra..." Seems that her hubs sometimes comments on her flat chest, which is totally unfair in my opinion, since she'd had that figure since forever.

Ala, hubs ni pun, size shouldn't matter la, kan? We ladies accept our dearests, size notwithstanding. And anyway tang breast size ni, I'm sure it's something likely obvious from the time you first meet, so you basically already know if she's flat chested or not. Takkan sampai dah anak tiga pun masih nak komen? Oh, but not all men la macam tu kan, probably ada yang tak minat pun dengan ladies' fuller breasts, "takut lemas..." hahaha :-)

By the way, and this is generalising, malays usually have good-sized breasts compared to the other races here. Out there pulak, they say Swedes are genetically more likely to have bigger boobs. Betul ke? I leave you with this video clip which I also saw on MTV (rosak pahala puasa aku... hahaha). Here's Inga from Sweden!

Link: sevenload.com

BACK FROM BRUNEI

2007-10-03T03:53:00.000+08:00

I'm baaaack!

Brunei was, well, macam pegi rumah sepupu aje, bih kurang sama je ngan kat sini :-)

<--- Anak damit (baby/infant in Bruneispeak)

Anak domok - chubby kid, hahah :-) --->

Seriously, si Haziq ni dah tembam sekarang heheh dah domok!

Anyway, we didn't get to do many things during the trip, because the kids were a bit unwell, and my bro-inlaw was tied up in meetings in the mornings. We stayed at his colleague's rented house in Kiarong, 6-room bungalow, so the kids were running all over the house, letih aku mengejar.

For iftar, it's food galore at the pasar ramadhan, mostly we went to Pasar Gadong. It's lamb heaven here! Depa suka makan kambing, so syok la dok beli lamb steak hari-hari, yang takdak jual kat pasar ramadhan Kelana Jaya ni. Banyak juga kuih yang first time aku jumpa. Aku geram tengok ikan bakar, banyak betul dijual dan murah pulak tu.

Sempat jugak survey pasar biasa. Hansac, petai nampak sama je ngan kat Semenanjung la :-)

Tapi durian, memang lain la, buahnya kecik, duri halus & panjang, isi warna merah. The aroma is different, and the taste is certainly different. Tapi aku tak pelik la, sebab aku dah pernah jumpa masa gi Sarawak dulu, in fact some of the fruits kat situ ada labels 'dari Miri' including the durian and the membangan. We bought some buah tarap too, nice! Hmm... foodstuff nampak murah dari di KL. For example secekak sawi bunga yang aku beli kat pasar tani sini dengan harga RM2.00, kat sana baru B50sen, which is quivelant to RM1.15.

Masjid tersergam indah, dengan kubah emas

One thing yang obvious sangat sal appearance kat sana, is that all signboards must have a jawi version. I bet Anita Roddick could never imagine her shop to have the signboard spelt ba-wau-dal-ya shim-wau-pa hehehe :-) MacDonalds lagi la panjang ejaannya.

Oh, first time aku lalu depan restoran ni, kat banner dia tulis 'Sungkai Buffet', and I thought the restaurant owner was a Malaysian hailing from Sungkai, Perak. Ghopenye, sungkai tu is berbuka puasa hehehe.

First time also tasted ambuyat, masa berbuka di restoran Andaman. I guess it takes some getting used to la, although it was fun to twirl the 'stick' in the ambuyat mixture hehehe :-) Aku ni asyik cakap sal makan je kan? Anyway, aku rasa belacan kat sana sedap, so aku hangkut balik a few packets. I guess it must be the shrimp in those areas la, sebab sebelum ni pun aku dok beli belacan Miri yang memang sedap (pada aku lar) dari belacan di sini.

Anyway, we had a relaxing time there. So relaxed is the life, sampai aku jadik tension dalam keta. Yelah, dah biasa ngan driver KL yang brutal, bila jumpa driver sopan-santun kat sana, nak keluar simpang pun ala-ala lemah-gemalai, rasa rimas plak hahaha :-)

Punyalah tak sibuk, check out the pc screen kat kaunter imigresen hehehe :-)

The people... oh the few that I met and spoke to, are so warm and friendly mah! And very sopan, tak intrusive and tak sesuka hati je tanya soalan personal. Yelah, kalau kat sini, baru 5 minutes into the conversation, mesti dah keluar soalan cepumas "dah kawin? anak berapa? oh kenapa tak kawin lagi?"

The sky looked great from my window on the flight back. I am a bit relaxed as compared to last week. Thank you, Brunei Darussalam :-)

RAMADHAN RANDOM POST

2007-09-21T03:05:00.000+08:00

Hmmpfh.

3.05 am. Too early for sahur.

Saw the 8.00pm news earlier. The bit on Nurin brought tears to my eyes. How the little girl had suffered, molested that way. How her dad is in denial despite the DNA test confirmation. Wondering how the sick bastard(s) who did all that, can go on living with a clear conscience. Sickos!

Accompanied Sis & kids to the Immigration Dept today to get their passports done. OK, I don't get this - all documents were complete, and the kids were presented at the time the documents were submitted, but why oh why do the kids have to be presented again at passport collection time? Surely it's gonna be the same kids, only by then they'd be cranky like hell after waiting for 2 hours at the stifling hot and humid office - the airconditioning was so poor that they've got a standing fan installed infront of every other counter (there's 13 counters). On top of all that, after waiting for about an hour, they informed us that the passports won't be ready today after all, 'coz their staff leave the office early during the fasting month. Wattafark?!!

Will be in Brunei for a few days next week, insyaAllah, accompanying some family members. Anyone can advise me on the to-do's and to-go's there? All I know about is the Jerudong Park and the Kampung Ayer. I wonder what to buy as souvenirs, what specialty dishes they have, what other places to visit? But nothing too adventurous though, coz there's little kids in the group.

Everything feels empty lately. Going through the days without any highlights at all. Am so bored these days, have resorted to practicing the pocho-pocho from Youtube. How pathetic is that? Haha!

I need a life.

Hmmpff.... still too early for sahur.

LOSING MY GROUND

2007-09-18T22:59:00.000+08:00

I'm such a glutton for punishment, I am.

Why do I keep hurting myself?

Like a wounded fox, I'd slink away for a while to lick my wounds.

WEAR IT PROPERLY LAH

2007-09-15T02:51:00.000+08:00

It's becoming a trend at my workplace, for Departments to provide or subsidize technical vests or jackets for their staff. The vest or jacket has the Department's name and the staff member's name embroidered on the upper right or left chest, and the Department's motto embroidered on its back. To keep costs down, the material used is usually inexpensive, and single layer without a lining, which means it's not thick enough to actually provide warmth to its wearer. Silap haribulan, nampak el-cheapo la pulak.

Personally, I don't find any particular function to these items of clothing, aside from creating a sense of brotherhood among its wearers, which may or may not be a good thing. Or perhaps they feel excited to have a custom-made vest or jacket, as the owner's name is embroidered on his/her piece, which again may or may not be a good thing. Risky, as any unbecoming conduct in public would instantly smear the wearer and his Department's name. Hmm, on the other hand, this may become a good disciplining tool, yes?

Do clothes make a person? I'm not much of a fashionista, but I prefer to see clothes worn properly as they were meant to be. For example, the vest is supposed to be an inner outer-wear, in that it's worn outside a shirt but usually with a blazer over it. Only in your own private space do you wear it without a blazer. But the people here seems to think a vest looks so grand, so it's worn as an outer wear, everywhere. The technical vest with pockets all over, that's usually worn by technical people like a handyman, is also proudly worn as a grand outer wear, everywhere.

Same goes for the jacket, which design usually looks like a sports jacket or wind-breaker otherwise worn by highschool kids in it's country of origin. And I swear, they think this is a 'corporate look' that's supposed to enhance the Department's image. It's ok for normal staff to wear those in their own office, but some middle-management group (read : senior officers, higher ranking than moi) even wear those to official assignments like inter-departmental meetings (ok lagi la) and meetings with clients and outsiders (oh tidak!).

Of course, don't judge a book by its covers, yadda yadda yadda. But when someone higher ranking than yourself becomes a fashion victim and proudly displays his 'wanna-be'ness, it's very awkward lah, knowing other people in the room might be thinking "hek eleh, buruknya!" during the meeting. Worse still if the wearer happens to be a cocky bastard, as some middle management happen to be, sheesh!

So yesterday when the boss mentioned that the department will be providing such jacket for all staff, after a brief silence, I politely asked if I could top-up the price with my own money, and have a blazer made instead. Not surprisingly, the other officers all voiced their assent, and my boss heaved a sigh of relief. You see, she herself hates the fashion fauxpas among the middle management group, and was having terrible visions of her subordinates walking into meetings dressed like a cyclist or a handyman.

Hmm... tak salah berpakaian kemas, tapi biarlah kena caranya. Apa-apa pun, segak sungguh si pemakai baju melayu lengkap dengan kain samping dan songkok... huuhuuhuuu...

SALAM RAMADHAN

2007-09-13T02:53:00.000+08:00

Received many SMS greetings on the eve of Ramadhan, a few of which I reproduce here, to extend the same greetings to you, my cyber friends!

"Jika doamu dimakbulkan, tanda Allah menyayangimu, jika doamu lambat dimakbukan, tanda Allah ingin mengujimu, jika doamu tidak dimakbulkan, tanda Allah merancang yang terbaik untukmu."

"Selamat beribadah sepanjang Ramadhan, semoga beroleh keredhaan Allah."

"Selamat berpuasa dan semoga Ramadhan kali ini memberi rahmat dan keberkatan berganda buat kita semua."

"Tiada suara semerdu azan, tiada buku seindah Al-Quran, tiada ibadah seindah solat, tiada bulan seceria Ramadhan, selamat berpuasa."

Indeed, may the arrival of Ramadhan bring a reinforcement of iman & taqwa to all of us. Salam sejahtera & selamat berpuasa!