31 August

Image by aaron.knox via Flickr

1 Malaysia.
That's the theme of our National Day which is today. Again it stresses on unity especially amongst the different races.
I posted a similar entry two years ago and what amaze me is that we (or at least the Goverment) still believes that we are still un-united.
Recently we lost Yasmin Ahmad. A prominent figure in loudly declaring her vision of 1 Malaysia thru her many tv commercials and films. I for one, will surely miss her much anticipated, emotional tvc during festive seasons and of cos during merdeka celebration too. When the rest of my family (hubby and kids) will watch me closely when the said tvc is aired just to see that I shed tears and usually without fail (they really got a kick out of it). Well, that will not happen this year I guess. May you rest in peace Y.A and may Allah bless you.

My thoughts are still the same as 2 years ago when I posted this entry on unity.

Happy 52nd Merdeka, Malaysia.

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Ramadhan arrives

Image by bhima @ flickr via Flickr

I havent been updating my blog as often as I want to. Not only that, I didnt even have the time to log into the internet in what feels the longest time. Reason to it, I shall reveal shortly.

Today is the 6th day of Ramadhan. It's the fasting month. The first day of fasting coincide with the one week school break which was a relieved to my boys especially Danial whom is still trying to adjust school activity and fasting at the same time. He didnt fast on the first day bcos he didnt has sahur (eating before dawn break) so I refuse to allow him to fast so he will understand the importance of sahur (to supply him the energy needed for the whole day to sustain his fast). He was quite annoyed when I made a big fuss to those whom fast to get priority during the breaking of fast especially to his older brother. So he made a promise to wake up for sahur at 4:45am every morning which he did.

My mom is staying with our family for almost a week plus already. So she's been preparing delicious meals for all of us. Last Sunday she made her famous nasi tomato (tomato rice) and I invited my brother's family to break fast together with us. She made popiah and kuah durian for me too and I learned to make roti jala (to eat with kuah durian) yummy! Another way to entice my children to eat more during sahur is to get them 'serunding' (beef floss) which they like to eat with rice. I use to buy one container after another every week for them and it is not cheap. I bought 2 kilos of beef recently and my mom made the serunding and we got 10 containers to my boys delight. So that settle the boys problem of what to eat during sahur.

Tomorrow we are sending my mom back to my hometown in Damar Laut and will also take the chance to visit my in-laws in Ipoh. So after this back to the usual routine, I'll be beating the traffic and making my way to pasar Ramadhan (market) every day after work to buy stuffs for our 'berbuka'.

During this fasting month, I find myself grew sleepy and tired easily. Ten thirty is the most for me. My eye lids will go very heavy further than that so that explains why I dont even have the time to venture into the internet hence no update on my blog. My body is still adjusting to waking up that early every morning. But I will do best to update more :)

Here's wishing every Muslim - Ramadhan Al Mubarak.

Abu Huraira related that the Prophet said: If a person does not avoid false talk and false conduct during Siyam, then Allah does not care if he abstains from food and drink (Bukhari, Muslim).

Post birthday

I celebrated my birthday last Friday Aug the 14th. Happy to announce that I can still keep the title of by blog -thirty something ^_^

The work in progress meeting ends at about 1145hr. I rushed back to my desk and was met with a surprise birthday cake from my colleagues.

I took half day leave and went out for lunch at Tony Roma's at Mid Valley with hubby and Danish since Danial is still at school.

At night, we continued the celebration with another round of makan-makan at Uptown Hawker Centre. Yong Tau Fu Teluk Intan, fried kuey teow, nasi ayam, nasi goreng cina, rojak and my favourite air limau asam boi were the order of the night. Heaven ...

Hubby also bought me a leo charm to add to my silver Thomas Sabo charm bracelet. Bliss ^_^

All in all, it was a very good day. A wonderful prelude to the weekend.

Have a good week ahead everybody.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

"If I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn't he have just smelled an onion?" So said the 7 year old Hassan and I subconsciously(if not already) fell in love with the character.

I had to laugh amidst my tears. The last book which managed to do exactly just that to me (torn between two opposite emotions) was Angela Ashes by the recently demise Frank McCourt.

The book was lend to me by my sis-in law K. Lin. In fact she loaned me 2 of Khaled Hosseini's best seller books (quite some time ago) BUT I was not ready to read it yet. I have the feeling that Kite Runner needs some serious concentration from me and its gonna be one of those intense book and I wasnt ready to ... cry especially. My taste in book change drastically after the passing of my father last February where I was so in need to get away from all of it that I dont want to drain myself emotionally. So I turned to reading unfamiliar characters which I dont have to relate to and if I were to cry bcos a girl is torn between her love towards a vampire and a werewolf so be it bcos somehow that is so far fetched. And so I indulged myself in many unfamiliar or different genres of books. Staying away as much as I can from the heart-wrenching ones (use to be my favourite).

Zendagi Migzara ... 'life goes on'

Two weekends ago I've decided that I am ready. And the book didnt dissappoint me. All the familiar emotions came rushing back to me and I embraced it gladly. The book was awesome. I wasnt paying much attention to the political background of the story (which was quite hard not to especially towards several chapters at the end) but more towards the turmoil relationship of the 2 boys Hassan (servant boy) and Amir (his master).

For you a thousand times over ...

I tried not to stay up too late especially on weekdays to read the book but the story kept pulling me back. It was so hard to resist. I finally put down the book last Tuesday night at 0110hr and suffered the next day at work.

But it was worth it.

ps/ I heard next month, one of the channel will be airing Kite Runner the movie. Okay got to wait for that one.

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Brain drain - NOT

I'm sure you can't miss me ... not with that big fat arrow sticking out above my head ^_^. This post is way too long postponed. The management trip was more than one month ago and I said I was gonna write about it 'sigh' ... how time flies.

Well, nothing extra-ordinary happened. We kept ourselves pretty busy. The first day was filled with 'fun in the sun'. We played mini 'amazing asia' where we put our lazy muscles to work. There were 4 groups all together and my group won number two.
Our brain drain session started on the first night itself with ice-breaking session where each one of us were subjected to tell everyone 'what you don't know about me' confession game. That was kinda of interesting, with many stories that made you either laughed your heart out, popped your eyes or too stunned to response. Yeah, it was that wild. We are a bunch of hooligans, I must say :)

When the session officially starts the next day at 0800hr, the single thing that saved all of us were Michael Jackson's songs collection. It was less than a week after his demise - so the big boss filled his ipod with all MJ songs, hooked it into the speaker and played it in between the ciggy, toilet, refreshment, lunch, tea breaks. The rule of the day was whoever came in late was suppose to sing one line of MJ song (of their own choice) and of cos' accompanied by his moves. Very soon the come in late rule became come in last. So no matter how early you are, if you are the last one so you have to do a MJ. That was hilarious!! If there was any awards it would have gone to these two guys Sean (Head of Finance) and Mr Z (Exec Director). Sean from Sydney aka Mr GQ - turned his cap around chose Smooth Criminal from the ipod list and did the Moonwalk effortlessly accompanied by wild cheers from all of us! Whilst Mr Z was deemed the last to come in when all of us decided to play the prank on him (he was the one who came out wt the MJ 'punishment'idea). It was our last break for the day but when Mr Z went to the gents, ALL 45 of us rushed back into the room with our drinks etc and waited for him. He did suspect something when he realised he was alone at the empty hallway. Mr Z did bring the house down when he grabbed his groin ala MJ with Thriller.
We did push ourselves to finish the discussion and presentation till 6:00pm so we dont have to continue the next day. No worries, I won't bore you with the boring and serious content.
Dinner was BBQ at the area between pool and beach. The night was filled with songs from the 80's courtesy of the resort. At the table where I was sitted, everytime a new song came out we were trying to remember either the song title or the singer. That pretty much revealed our age lol. I retired early at about 10:45pm. By then almost half of us were already being thrown into the pool. Irregardless of your excuse, there were no mercy. You either choose the hard way, ran all the way across the beach with a group of lunatic (half were intoxicated) men chasing you or being carried away arms and legs (some while sitted on the beach chair and carried away like egyptian royalty) and swung into the pool, you go! It's almost like a ritual to all of our similar trip. Only this year, the casualties were lesser. Only one Blackberry and a Samsung handphone.

Elizabeth's Daughter by Marianne Fredriksson

'Words of comfort are like whipped cream, a superficial topping'
I like that phrase. Especially for people like me who prefer to listen rather than offer my words to others especially when someone losses somebody very dear to them. The book was a slow start for me. But only bcos I was just too sleepy and tired during weekday nights.

Elizabeth's Daughter was a perfect book for me to venture into modern setting after the classics. Set it modern Sweden which intrigue me to place the country as a must visit Europe country- one day, I hope ^_^ (apart from Germany). Even its society and culture sounds fascinating to me. So now, Sweden is no longer just Sony Ericsson, Ikea and Volvo to me. The one year maternity leave and emphasize on children's welfare also reminded me of a conversation I had before with my hubby's Swedish friend (many years ago) when he and family came to KL for two nights visit after their Borneo trip. We took them to see the famous fire-flies of Kuala Selangor.

Okay back to the book, I like its straight forwardness dialogue and no pretentious characters.

Here's a poem from T.S Eliot quote from the book:
'Where is the Life, we have lost in Living?
Where is the Wisdom, we have lost in Knowledge?
Where is the Knowledge, we have lost in Information?'

Have a good week ahead, everyone.

Fridge magnet (89-90) - Austria, Cambodia

Somewhere early this year I received one fridge magnet from Jakarta from a colleague who went there not for vacation but on work matter - to close our office which was based there. I didnt took its photo but that one made it to no. 88 on my fridge.

These two were given by Kak Long (sis-in law) which I havent met for 2 months perhaps until last weekend. Currently, she's the jet-setter in the family :))

Thank you K. Long for magnets no. 89 & 90!