Scribblings...Just Fancy That!

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-21T20:35:00.000+08:00

Alas....the movie that is based on one of the most highly controversial novels made its debut on Friday. And of course, we just HAD to see it (after all the hoo haas and yakety yaks laaa of course. Wouldn't you??). Had to catch it on its debut nite as well (of course). To tell you the truth, I have not read this highly controversial novel written by Dan Brown yet (I have read a couple of his other novels, but not yet this one), therefore I had no pre-judgmental views or anticipations about the movie at all. Well, June has read the book quite sometime back (she borrowed it from Cikgu) and even Darling also has read it in his English Literature class. So, I was the only one "blur and Duh!!". Nevermind, I think it is better that way. Have an open mind about it. But hey, to tell you the truth, if you have not read Da Vinci Code book (or even Angels and Demons...Da Vinci Code is Part Two of this trilogy), dontcha worry about it as you will still be able to follow its storyline. Hehe.

The Da Vinci Code is a combination of thriller, crime/detective, mystery, religion (Christianity), and conspiracy fiction genres. It was published in March 2003 and I think the controversies have helped the book to achieve more than 60million copies sold world wide. See some controversies may not be all that bad huh? I just like Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings of Mona Lisa and The Last Supper (heh!). Darling loves Da Vinci's painting works and when we were in London the last time in 2002, I got him a very nice book of Da Vinci's paintings (tak mampu nak beli reprints of Da Vinci's paintings pun you!!! Mahal bedo'oh wei!! So beli aje la buku dia...sob sob..) But Darling was already happy with the book. And June got a book on Monet's works. Very nice. And what did I get for myself? Sacrifice :)

I read somewhere that Dan Brown said he got the idea to write Da Vinci Code when he first learned of the mysteries hidden in Da Vinci's paintings while he was studying art history at the University of Seville in Spain. And years later, while he was researching for his novel Angels and Demons and the Vatican Secret Achives, he encountered the Da Vinci enigma again. He then arranged for a trip to the Louvre Museum where he was fortunate enough to view the originals of some of Da Vinci's most famous works as well as discuss about them with an art historian who had helped him to understand better the mystery behind the paintings' surprising anomalies. And he had spent a year doing research before writing The Da Vinci Code novel.

As you already know, the story is about Jesus, was he really married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a child who then intermarried the "Sang Real" (the royals of France), the legend on Holy Grail and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity and the mysteries behind Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. The main cast, Tom Hanks (Prof Robert Langdon, a religious symbologist from Harvard), although he played the character well (I have always liked Tom Hanks) but perhaps Harrison Ford could have carried it off better (Do you think so??). Ahaaa...Sir Ian McKellan (one of my most favorite characters in LOTR...GANDALF yessss!!) played Sir Leigh Teabing. He was so articulate with the character that at times I really think that he stole the show away. He has some of the best one liners as well. Very well done. And of course, the beautiful and "princess-like" Sophie Neveu (also known as Princess Sophie) is someone I'm not familiar with....Francois....beautiful Audrey Tautou played Sophie, the cryptologist. I think she was "OK" although she has too skinny pair of legs. I really like her deep French accent though. Nice and very sexy. At first I did not like the character Capt Bezu Fache (played by Jean Reno), but as it turned out, he was OK because he had helped Langdon. And another very good actor...Paul Bettany who had played the infamous menacing single-minded Silas. Gruesome :(

It doesn't matter if you are a big fan of Dan Brown or a big fan of The Da Vinci Code, or a fan of Leonardo Da Vinci paintings or simply a movie buff for entertainment sake, if you haven't seen this movie, go catch it. For someone who has not read the novel, I had enjoyed it. To me it was another brilliant work by Ron Howard. And I bet it will surpass revenues from MI3 (they should start looking for a new Eton Hunt as I think Cruise is no longer "HIP" and he was never an MI material anyway....my 5cents' worth....he is always TOO SHORT for any character! Period!).

Next on the dish is X-Men (SEXY and HOTTIE Hugh Jackman...dontcha wish wish wish *errr nevermind...hahaha*) and Pirates of the Carribean (Ahhhh......Depp and Legolas Bloom...Fuyoo). Any takers?? I think during my long semester break, I'm hanging out at the cineplexes....muahahahaha! All the Summer releases are not to be missed. Surely!

Aisayman...I Say Man....Aisehman....!!!

2006-05-18T01:47:00.000+08:00

Has anyone been to our LCCT in Sepang yet? Care to share your views on it..or better your experiences?

I had to go to LCCT recently to see a friend off and man oh man...it was my first time to LCCT eversince its opening on March 26. I thought that the LCCT (which means Low Cost Carrier Terminal) that is hubbed by our second national air carrier, Air Asia, was somewhere nextdoor to the KLIA (if not the very nextdoor...well, at least I thought a few doors away...I mean, who would imagine that the Air Asia Terminal would be further than a couple of doors away when its international flights still depart from the main KLIA right?). I told some friends..."Alaaaa...sure nextdoor punya..tak jauh la....at the very most naik shuttle or walkalator". Man oh man..was I in total shock!

At first I went to the KLIA (main) to see this friend off. Then I realised that the LCCT ain't there. I made some intelligent inquiries (now that was not too difficult to do since the girl who entertained me asked me with a straight face, "Are you driving maaam?". With a more straight face, I answered calmly, "Yeaaaaaaaa.....:)". Now that wasn't too difficult I thought to myself. Voila!! She gave me a MAP!! Yippeee...a map!! Now how am I going to read a map while driving in the dark?? Well, it was at night in case you are wondering.

Then with confidence I drove off from the KLIA to search for the exit to take me to LCCT. Yup, it was further than I had imagined. Further than the SIC, further than MAS Cargo, further than the junction that would take you to Sepang and some other towns that sound so alien to me...further than whatever that I had thought of. I was driving for like 40minutes already and still no sign of LCCT. I would imagine to see plenty of high masts nearing the Terminal....but NADA. I saw many warehouses.....office complexes.....more warehouses.....storages....but hey, no LCCT. I was getting worried and wondered if I had taken the wrong turn or whatever (not being able to read the map in the dark and driving ALONE somemore...wish I had a co-driver then). I decided to do what every smart person would do. Yup....looking like a damsel in distress, I made two pitstops to ask the security guards for direction. Already I was so late :(

I finally arrived at the so called FIRST EVER LCCT IN ASIA! Yeeeaaaah rrrriggght! To tell you the truth, I didn't even realise that I was already THERE!! Hahahaha!! And I said to myself..."Huh? Is this ALL??? ALL??". Okay time to look for a spot quickly. And then I saw this red proton's headlights were lighted up and so I thought to myself "Ahhh..someone's getting out of a spot." I waited so patiently for 3 minutes.....(already I was so so late)...then another 1 more minute...and one more. I said to myself, "Dang!! Are you getting out of that spot or not?" Don't you ever wish that you could smack people who do that to you? How many times have you ever waited so patiently for a car to get out of a spot and the more patient you seemed to be, the more the delay the person is causing you. Macam nak test your patience to the max la macam tu. Of course, the better of me won. Why? Because this is MALAYSIA!! And everything happens in Malaysia and amongst Malaysians. I rest my case. I drove on further away to find for another spot. And I found one. But it was quite far away from the main entrance. When you are late and desperate, how you wish you could just drive straight into the main lobby aye?

I rushed inside the spic and span LCCT. My first impression of it? Well...it is just like the Greyhound Terminal in the States. Just like Air Asia's signature...no frills...no thrills....no extras....no toppings....no garnishings.....no side orders....no kick-ass *wink wink you know what I mean?*. Everything was so clean....sweepers were everywhere to ensure cleanliness. The eateries were bursting to its seams with people waiting in line to get a decent meal (I hear that the meals there can cost you a whopping price..considering that it's a NO BUDGET...errr...I mean LOW BUDGET hehehehe Terminal). I was wondering to myself.."where do all these people come from? They can't be travelling on business as they would take MAS which is the more fancy and artsy carrier....not Air Asia". Then I saw families, kids, the elders....everyone you can see them all. Well, it is very good that Air Asia with its no frills service offer absolutely low budget fares so that now everybody CAN travel. And who wouldn't want to travel on a low budget aye? I would. It is very heartening to see that almost anyone can travel by air in a considerably confortable, convenient and fashionable way now. Now this is what we call...MALAYSIA...Malaysia BOLEH punya pasal. Ahaks!

I was desperately looking for my friend and fearing at the same time that I might not be able to catch hold of this friend before boarding. I looked at the "very low budget" electronic board listing all the departures and arrivals that were hanging off from the ceiling...just the boards you know..not even fancy casings or some fancy backdrop to hold the boards....macam ala bus stations laa....I think the train stations have fancier electronic boards. Anyway, there I saw oh the flight has been retimed. Phew! Then I told myself, "Well.....that is Air Asia..they are very fond of retiming.....they simply LURVE to retime.....macam naik bas....tak payah ikut jadual masa kan...janji bus penuh jalan!".

Did I ever tell you that June went to Jakarta sometime in March or was it in February with some friends. I was supposed to pick them up from KLIA around 9-ish pm. But I got an SMS from Jakarta informing them that Air Asia's flight from KL was delayed and therefore the turnaround would also be delayed. At first they said retimed by an hour.....later retimed again by half hour...then retimed again..and again......finally SMS'es from Jakarta said that the flight was developing some technical problems and would definitely have a much longer retiming. They had enough of waiting at Suharto's Airport (they were sent there by the travel agent as early as 4pm to catch the 7pm flight...because in Jakarta the "machet" is worse than KL's) that they must have "tawaf-ed" the entire airport a million times, they ate and ate until they couldn't eat no more, they smoked and smoked until they couldn't smoke no more...they joked and joked until they couldn't joke no more, they wish they could play some ball bangings on the walls..or yoyo....or foosballs...or gin rummy sigh. I cerita pun letih. When I heard word that the Air Asia plane was developing some technical problems, I was frantic and started to pace up and down. Then I decided to perform solat hajat to pray for all their safety on board. Finally one SMS came in and said that they were boarding already. I drove alone to KLIA to pick them up at the wee hours of the morning. Alhamdullillah they touched down at KLIA safely. They all looked like they needed to hibernate at least a couple of days to release all the tension and stress. By the time we got into Subang Jaya to drop off some guys and then came home to Shah Alam safe and sound, it was already 5-ish in the morning. That was one experience on Air Asia we hope not to go through again.

Anyway, back to my story here...hehehehe...a mighty LONG DIVERSION I did aye? So I thought...."Alah Air Asia second name is RETIME...so I shouldn't have gotten so worked up earlier thinking that I was so late. Buat letih aje getting so worked up for nothing". Then I saw my friend!! Yippeee.....Little did I know that Air Asia (maybe due to its low budget), closes its counters like 50mins or exactly 45minutes before departures...nanti kena bayar OT pulak kan?? Hahaha. And if you are so so unlucky to be turned away at the counter because you were late for check-ins, then you have to go to a special counter and behold! Baggages kena bawak sendiri okay...because they also close the cargo early. So tell me...what do you do if you were bringing with you some huge samsonite lugagges or one of those mighty classy looking Louis Vuitton luggages and they can't fit into the overhead compartments? Are you saying that you would have to leave them behind? Or no worries, we will send you your luggages on the next flight? *the Air Asia girls will tell you*. The moral of the story here is that when you travel cheap....on a very low budget...low cost carrier, better bring just a backpack..trust me on this one I know. Now we know why Air Asia only allows you to bring 15kgs of baggages into the cargo and 5kgs onboard. Tricky! Anyway, since that flight was retimed, how come they didn't retime their closing for the check-ins huh? Weird. But hey...this is MALAYSIA!!! Muahahahaha.....Malaysia BOLEH aja! That is why everything amuses me there.

Oh by the way, if your flight get retimed and retimed and at the end you may end up waiting for like 3-4 hours in LCCT, be sure to know that they don't have lounges chairs, nor soft sofas, nor comfy cushioned chairs with beautiful postured backs for you to "melepak" or bum around okay. They all look pretty much plastic to me. Remember that that is LCCT...everything is LOW BUDGET. So bring your own cushions. Oh better don't leave your laptops behind if you are a die-hard internet user...or your MP3 (like me heh).

My friends and I travel on Air Asia many times and we had not much problems with the carrier. I find that the aircrafts are very nice with black leather seats or leather wannabe/look-alike whatever (considering that it is a budget carrier, I don't think that those were real leathers were they?). Although we cannot compare their service to other airlines because theirs is a no-frills kind of thing, I guess many of us would not mind cutting corners on our travel fares just so that we could spend more on other things especially when we are on travels and vacations.

So yes...I'm a budget traveller as I think why pay more when you can reach your destination just the same. The way home was a lot easier because I was no longer groping in the dark. But a thought did cross my mind...what if your flight get into town on the last one, and you would have to brave yourself driving some long lonely roads with little lightings and dark corners everywhere and what if your car breaks down....you're fried baby yeah!! Okay that is just my imagination. Ignore it.

LCCT...it didn't leave me with much impression. I think it looks more like a humongous warehouse but extremely brightly-lit. That's it. I figured even if they wanted to keep it low budget and low cost and all...hence, the name LCCT, they should at least think of future expansions and needs and requirements. With all the globalization and glocalization factors to be considered, after all Air Asia ISN'T REALLY going to remain AIR ASIA to the end of time ain't it, I think that the LCCT could deliver more than just a Budget Terminal (BT). No wonder some of the people call LCCT not Low Cost Carrier Terminal, but Low Class Commuters Terminal. Aisayman.......why laaa...what happen to our Malaysia BOLEH?? Amusing....amusing....amusing.....ROTFL

To Sir With Love...

2006-05-16T12:56:00.000+08:00

Do you still remember this classic movie "To Sir With Love". I, somehow cannot, for the life of me remember its storyline but I sure remember the beautiful song. Hehehe. Why all of a sudden I remember this movie?? Well, that is because today is TEACHER's DAY!!! And I'm a teacher. Ahaks!!

So wishing all the teachers in da house (if any....aside from me and Cikgu....lol) a VERY HAPPY TEACHER's DAY indeed.

Well, i got some SMS'es from my ex students...awww....they touched my heart!

Today is also my sister's (Aya) birthday. And usually she will hang out with her "gebang" cronies from ANSARA (MRSM Alumni). We usually celebrate on weekends and somehow this year, we have run out of ideas of what else to do. It is like the celebrating mood has watered down...maybe we are getting too old for this *do you think so?* I mean...we will get too old to do anything...at some point right? Have you guys ever felt like this before? Like you feel that you are too old for this and for that bla..bla...bla. Well, we will leave the birthday celebration for the weekend then. Que Sera Sera...What Will Be..Will Be aye? Lol.

Today at Darling's school, there are some Teacher's Day celebrations and whatever. Last nite he was so busy running errands for the preps. He told me that the Form 5 had chosen him to be the Project Manager for Teacher's Day celebration and he had to get some stuff ready last nite. I thought to myself, "how come Darling always get chosen to be project manager of this and that...macam tak habis2....that day he was the PM for the school's float at some ocassion...then he was the PM for his Yellow House Sports Day la....then this Friday again coordinating his school's trip to watch GREASE play (yeah baby yeah...GREASE LIGHTNING!!! JOHN TRAVOLTA and OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN!!!...if only the REAL Travolta comes here, I will go...LOL....how can anyone hate that movie and what a trend it had set back then aye? The John Travolta fever..the look, the ATTITUDE baby! Yeah!!). Do you know that John Travolta has 6 kids and such a doting father? If it is not 6, I know that he has many. It is so un-Hollywood mega super star to have 6 kids huh? And he and Oprah are best of best buds.

Anyway, June was also the official chauffer last nite to take Darling out on his errands and this morning June told me that Darling had bought 6 melons and 60 candles and a pretty large sized white cotton material. Hmmm....I wonder what his tricks are. I think next time I can depend on Darling to be the PM for whatever ocassion we may have huh. Like they say, "where will the gravy fall if not onto the plate?" (Kemana tumpahnye kuah kalu tak ke meja?? LOL) Am I right with that old saying? Whatever...yeah...whatever...

Happy Teacher's Day...to all in da house. Because I believe that we are ALL Teachers. We teach everyday...we teach our kids, our staff, our siblings, our friends etc...EVERYDAY. So give yourselves a good pat on your backs aye?

TQ...TQ.....TQ!!

2006-05-16T12:15:00.000+08:00

To all of you lovely hot mamas in da house....Rose, Mint, KC, MobileMom, CK ( I think her server is still down...kasihan laaaa Mek Ganu kite nih weiii)....and Anonymous. You peeps have made my day a truly good Mother's Day! TQVM for all of your lovely and sweet wishes and comments (please see my comments in my previous post for further messages la) for my mom and I. I really and truly appreciate all of your kindest wishes. I hope you supermoms had a good Mother's Day celebration as well. As for me, my Mother's Day was "Hell Broke Loose" because I was desperately struggling to finish marking 101 final exam papers (long essay questions somemore wei) that was due yesterday. Thank God, I finished the job (after the entire day and nite with no sleep). That is what "deadlines" are...you crossed the line, you're a dead duck!!

So, my Mother's Day was just that...marking and marking. To answer MobileMom's question, what did I do and what Darling got me. Well, Darling had a very busy day himself on that day. He had classes followed by a motivation talk (for SPM) at Holiday Villa in Subang Jaya in the afternoon. And June....poor her...she was the official chauffer. Ahaks. We called Mom to come over to KL so that we could take her out for a nice dinner at Sheraton Subang. But she said she has the craves for fish and chips at Manhattan Fish in Subang Parade. She said, "Mak teringat la kat fish and chips yang kita makan gan Darling dulu...apa nama tempat tu kat Subang Parade?". "Oh Manhattan Fish and Chips!", I said. Alahai....tak payah celebrate Mother's Day la if setakat nak makan kat Manhattan Fish....anytime pun boleh. But as it turned out, my father "malas" to drop off my mom at Seremban Komuter Station for her to take the commuter to Shah Alam, so Manhattan Fish is therefore deferred. Maybe we can do that at her next visit here when she sees her doctor at SJMC.

To answer MobileMom's question..."I only got a Mother's Day SMS from Darling at the strike of midnite". That is all. Nope...not even a stalk of rose or a box of chocs...boo hoo!! Nevermind, I don't anticipate anything. A wish is more than I could ask for from anyone. A good word...a good hug...that sort of thing you know.

Mint......what did you do with your family? I must say that you certainly have a pretty family. All those adorable kids you have. I envy you. I never had a chance to have more than one child. Heh. Sometimes I wish I had more than just one child. A pretty girl would be perfect.

KC, yes....talking about nieces and nephews...they are also our children. Too bad I don't have many in the family. Nak2 lagi when they are all so grown up...they do their thing and they are no longer amused with you *you know what I mean?*. What did you do with S, dear?

Rose...hey girl.....I'm so happy to hear that you have finally gotten your "afternoon nap" that is so long overdue *i'm sure*. I can't even remember when was the last time I had taken mine. It doesn't exist in my vocab I think. Lol. Yes, I know Harith simply loves to play the PS2 at your MIL's. Seronok la dia :) BTW, I have yet to post our "gebang" at the recent hang out at Swensen. Nanti ye babe? My "Hell Broke Loose" officially ended yesterday and I'm like trying to catch up with my breath. Hehehe. Oh about last Sunday...hey no worries about it Dahling. But you sure missed a helluva FUN!! Yeah baby yeah....

Anis and I had so much fun at Villamay and I wanted to treat you la. Have no worries you! There will always be another tomorrow. Anis loves the place. I will post some pix soon. To show off to you laaa...and to show you what you just missed aye? TQVM for being such a beautiful friend Rose. You are truly BEAUTIFUL..in the truest sense of the word. Lembing has brought us all together and it is amazing isn't it? Mwahs Mwahs!

To Anonymous....well, what can I say? You touched my heart. Thank you so very much. I'm lost for words.

I hope that all the super and hot mamas in da house had a lot of memorable times with your loved ones on Mother's Day. I bet.

Wishing All Mommies Happy Mother's Day!!

2006-05-13T23:53:00.000+08:00

To all the Mommies in the house....wishing all of you HOT HOT and HOT MAMAS a very HAPPY MOTHER's DAY indeed!!

To my best of the bestest buddies....CK, ROSE, MOBILEMOM, KC (for being a God Mom), CIKGU (for being Darling's God Mom)....if those urban mommies say that they are hotter, I think you babes are twice hotter!! You must be proud of the tiny tots whom you are raising and no love is stronger and deeper than a mother's love for her children. Happy Mother's Day!

To all the other mommies in the house (those I didn't mention their names here), please know that the same Happy Mother's Day wishes go out to you as well.

Enjoy the day! Hugs and mwahs!!

Mother's Day Salute...

2006-05-13T22:34:00.000+08:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOMMY DEAREST!!

June and Mom

My mother, "Mak", was born almost 65 years ago in August and when I look back into time, I realised how much she had sacrificed and done for us and to keep us bonded together. She is such an inspirational, such magical force in our lives, as without her, my siblings and I will not be where we are today. I am sure that everyone will say all that about their mothers. I guess all mothers are made the same and they have the same motherly instincts, the same motherly love and care and the same motherly sacrifices that they will do for their children and husbands and parents and siblings. They are EVERYTHING. Unquestionnable and unconditional maternal love. That is their mission in life in this world.

My siblings and I are very lucky to have a mother who is so open-minded, intelligent, wise, creative, very analytical and loving. Because she herself graduated from Hawaii's East West Centre, she inspired us all to follow her footsteps to the US. She is one major driving force in our lives and we are very proud of her and what she has made us into. She had never stopped working until now. She is very active in politics (with my father) and she was the chief of UMNO's Women wing for almost 4 terms until she decided to take a step back to give way to the younger women.

Of course, if I were to pen down all of my mother's achievements, it would be endless. But I will always remember her philosophies in life that she has passed down to me and now I realise how practical and logical her philosophies are. When I was young she always told me this :

(1) Eventhough you are a woman, you must never ever stop getting education and fly as high as you can because no man is going to help you when you are in trouble (being divorced for almost 15 years now, I am thankful to my Mommy Dearest that I am flying high. At least I don't have to worry about having a shelter above my head and my son's).

(2) Have your own money because it is very difficult to ask money from your husband because there would be so many "whys" from him. Sound too familiar?

(3) Marry someone who loves you more than you love him because it makes the relationship much easier to handle.

(4) When your husband walks out of the door, he is not your husband. When he comes home, then he is your husband (in this modern world and with so much problems in relationships, I know my mother is so right. And how did she know this 35-36years ago??)

(5) Marry a man who has lost both parents because it will make your relationship with your husband a lot easier and in-laws problems are never easy to deal with (isn't that every girl's wish??. Hahaha. Such a selfish wish. Yeah I know. Ahaks)

(6) Always "bersyukur" to Allah for even the small delights in your life. The more you "bersyukur" the more He will bless you.

(7) Always move on with your life and never look back because the future is always more exciting and rewarding (now, this is something I used to have a big time problem to deal with).

(8) Always try to make sacrifices in your life because between the men and women species, it is usually the women who would be more willing to make sacrifices. That is how it works, so she said.

(9) Shopping is like trying to cover the entire ocean...you will never be able to cover it and will never ever be enough. So stop shopping! (Thank you... that I'm no shopaholic.)

(10) Always look beautiful...not for others or for any man...but for you. Since you work so hard, you must do little things especially for you....so she said somemore!

(11) Never forget your roots no matter how high you fly....

(12) Whenever you are in doubt or in trouble, just say "Que Sera Sera...What will be will be". Don't lose your beauty sleep over it. So she said...and how many times have I wished that even after saying mom's "Que Sera Sera...What will be will be", my heart still aches and my mind still on its way to madness :(. It is amazing that I can still remember she said this to me when I was 7 years old!! I guess the only thing that never fail to hold my sanity intact is knowing that I have a son and that he will always need me....always. And I must be there always for him (just as what my mother has always reminded me...."although no man may need you, but Darling will always need you and that is why you have to move on and say Que Sera Sera what will be will be").

These are among the so many advices she has told me and how can I ever say that she is so wrong. She hasn't been wrong so far.

I guess Mothers are God send and they are all made in Heaven. I am just so lucky to still have my mother and even luckier that she is just as educated, open minded and wise as any high profiled woman of her time. She may not be rich, nor pretty, nor come from some high status family, but to us she is more than all those put together.

HAPPY MOTHER's DAY MOMMY DEAREST !!! We love you very much...ALWAYS!

Comments on The 80's....What a Music Haven!

2006-05-01T12:07:00.000+08:00

To all those who had given me your feedback on my previous post that I posted entitled "The 80's...What A Music Haven", I want to say Thank YOU so very much for taking the time to dropby and post me your comments.

Okay guys, I read all your lovely feedbacks and I think my reply warrants a new posting. Hahahaha!! Because like I said, I can go on and on talking about the songs of the 80's and you should see the smiles (and sometimes the laughters) that I would have on my face. I would even ditch my Hitz.FM on weekends and swing over to Mix FM to listen to their playlist of the 70's and 80's throughout the entire weekend. They would spin all the wonderful songs of those era, and almost DJ-less throughout the entire weekend, one can just sit back and relax and simply enjoy remisniscing and goin back into time...and of course smile. June and I never fail to smile and laugh. To recall people's antics and moves and sways on the floors!! Ahaks!

To answer CK's comments, yup....I would agree with you that a handphone is very important especially when we are stranded ALONE on a remote island and need the handphone to make an SOS call. Heh. Of course, we wouldn't want to end up like LOST on AXN do we? But yeah, you do also remember the 80's aye? Nostalgic memories. How we wish that they can make the same kinda music in this time. But somehow, they are never quite the same. Maybe I'm so biased of the 80's. It is a big shame that you do not have the time to listen to music anymore my dear. You can still listen to them while you do your work and stuff. Simply download all your fave tunes into an MP3 and have an ear piece in your ear when you do your work. I do that even when I am marking. Yikes! (Me reminding meself that my Hell Broke Loose is still not over yet). Maybe we will get you one MP3 huh?

To answer Mobile Mom's comments...aisay beb....of course la I can still remember so so vividly all the songs that make me smile, laugh, dance my *toot* off, those that refuse to leave my memory storage kinda thing...plus those that also make me weeped and cried and broke my heart. I wish I can write all my fave playlists and repertoires but it is just impossible to write all of them here. But you would agree that, that era has produced for us music that are out of this world kan?? Wink Wink. Unreal gitu. I guess if people will remember certain music production for decades and decades down the road, then that music must absolutely be out of this world kinda. Right?

To answer Anon's comments, TQVM for your kind compliment! Yes sir!! MELISSA MANCHESTER. Of course! How can anyone forget her. She is a diva...a balladist and truly her music has touched many people in the world...I can imagine. Yup.....one of Canadian's most precious exports, she was discovered by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow....started as a back-up singer to both. And that particular song you mentioned, IF THIS IS LOVE, yes, I remember it. Released in 1980 under the album called "FOR THE WORKING GIRL". However, I cannot, for the life of me, recall the tune. What I remember MOST of her was of course her danceable tune "YOU SHOULD HEAR HOW SHE TALKS ABOUT YOU"!!! Hehehe. Why? Because we danced to that number many times. Me and my "party hardy" friends. And yeah her other songs that I particularly like very much are "DON'T CRY OUT LOUD", "MIDNIGHT BLUE", "WHENEVER I CALL YOU FRIEND" (a collaboration with Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks if I'm not wrong), and that X'Mas fave of mine..."HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE X'MAS". Her soundtracks are also very moving and absolutely "romantic and touching to the hearts" like "LOOKING THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE (I most particularly love this song from the motion picture "ICE CASTLES"), "POCAHONTAS", "I'LL NEVER SAY GOODBYE" (from the motion picture THE PROMISE), and if you saw OUT OF AFRICA (one of my most aspiring motion pictures...that is how my interest in Africa, the land of so much mystics, mysteries, bewilderment and new discoveries was developed), you would remember its soundtrack, "THE MUSIC OF GOODBYE", a duet with Al Jarreau in 1985, and of course.....the motion picture soundtrack "LADY AND THE TRAMP II". Hehehehe. So I reckon that you are a Melissa Manchester kinda. I just remember that I have about close to 350 CDs collection and NONE from Melissa Manchester. Not even her compilation or her best hits. She released her latest album not too long ago...2 years ago I think. And I don't even have that one too. Too bad. So talk to me about Melissa Manchester..yeah baby yeah....!! And I can't help wondering if "IF THIS IS LOVE" brings you back some good old memories? Probably yes I reckon aye? If you are a Melissa Manchester avid fan, here I give you this lovely ballad lyric...of course, especially for you :

Please don't let this feeling end
It's everything I am
Everything I want to be
I can see what's mine now
Finding out what's true
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love

Now I can take the time
I can see my life as it comes up shining now
Reaching out to touch you
I can feel so much
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love

And now I do believe
That even in the storm we'll find some light
Knowing you're beside me
I'm all right

Please don't let this feeling end
It might not come again
And I want to remember
How it feels to touch you
How I feel so much
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love

And now I do believe
That even in the storm we'll find some light
Knowing you're beside me
I'm all right

Now I can take the time
I can see my life as it comes up shining now
Reaching out to touch you
I can feel so much
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love

The 80's.....What A Music Haven!

2006-04-26T01:41:00.000+08:00

Recently we had a birthday bash for Cikgu at Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel and we had this rare opportunity to hang with our old friends, the Lembingers, and among the many fun conversations we had was on the topic of the songs of the 80's. As we were all graduates from the US (and almost during the same era), we could relate to each other when we were talking about songs of the 80's. I mean, we went on and on talking about all our fave bands, soloists and gigs of the 80's. Especially Fireblade and Anis.... they remember more songs, singers and gigs than I could. Hehe.

There were groups and soloists who were so big in the 80's but we don't hear them anymore afterwards. Like for example, the Culture Club, the DeBarge, Cyndi Lauper, Ah-ha, Bonnie Tyler, Chaka Khan, Glen Frey, Spandau Ballet, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Huey Lewis and the News, Stray Cats (with that stray cat's strut song and cat's style!), Taylor Dayne, Wang Chung, Styx, Sade, Journey, Nena, Sheila E, Rockwell, and a whole bunch more. I don't know about you, but I HAVEN'T heard from them in the 90's or even in this new millennium. Maybe I'm so blur...or maybe I'm out of touch...maybe I don't stay tune to the right radio station (meaning that Hitz.FM is out-dated!!), or maybe I don't hang with MTV...whatever "maybes"....so because of that, I am out of touch with these artistes and therefore, if they did make new musics after the 80's I don't know about them. Well, that is quite possible. But I think not. Because I think I'm still up-to-date (to a certain extent) with the music industry. Hahaha.

Fireblade, Anis and me were recollecting and naming some of the hotstuff gigs of the 80's and oh boy, did we come up with a whole bunch of songs and I can remember SO vividly all the popular songs of the 80's. I mean these are the kind of songs that make the 80's. Without these songs, there would not be anything of the 80's to remember by. They are the character, personality and attitude of the 80's. They are so special and so impactful in our lives that we all agree that oh man....these songs baby...they ARE (excuse me) the 80's. Pronto! And they do NOT make songs like those anymore in this time. What a shame indeed.

How many of you could still remember these songs?? Let me tell you. Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler), Eye of the Tiger (Survivor), Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams), Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes), Jump (Van Halen), Africa (Toto), Separate Ways (Journey), Missing You (John Waite), Listen to your Heart (Roxette), Love is a Battlefield (Pat Benatar), Everyone Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears), Let's Go Crazy and Purple Rain (both by Prince), Abracadabra (Steve Miller), I Feel For You (Chaka Khan), Down Under (Men at Work), Talking in your Sleep (The Romantics), True (Spandau Ballet), One Night in Bangkok (Murray Head), Hungry Like A Wolf (Duran Duran), Dreams (Fleetwood Mac...I love Stevie Nicks!), I Want To Know What Love Is (Foreigner), Young Turks (Rod Stewart), Bette Davies Eyes (Kim Carnes), You Can Do Magic (America), Somebody's Watching Me (Who? The IRS...Rockwell. Heh), Rock the Casbar (Clash), Always Something There To Remind Me (Naked Eyes), Another One Bites the Dust and That Crazy Little Thing Called Love (both by Queen), Maneater and Private Eyes (both by Hall and Oates), Don't Talk To Strangers (Rick Springfield), Footloose (yeahh...Kenny Loggins), Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper), You're Simply the Best (Tina Turner), my old time fave Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns n Roses), Celebration (Kool and the Gang), Play that Funky Music (Wild Cherry), Karma Chameleon (Culture Club), Material Girl (Madonna), Money for Nothing (Dire Straits), Sexual Healing (Marvin Gaye), Red Red Wine (UB40), You Can't Hurry Love (Phil Collins), The Power of Love (Huey Lewis and the News), Poison Arrow (ABC), Every Breath You Take (Police), Would I Lie To You (Eurythmics), Hurts So Bad and Jack & Diane (both by John Cougar Mallencamp), Thriller, Beat It, and a whole bunch of his other hotstuff (Michael Jackson), and the list can go on and on. I'm sure you all have your own hot favorites of the 80's as well. I guess all these are mine, among so many other hits of the 80's.

We all can still remember the great works of Airsupply, Genesis, Aerosmith, Rick James, Pet Shop Boys, Inxs, James Ingram, KC and the Sunshine Band, Salt 'N' Pepper, Paul Young, Simple Minds, Miami Sound Machine, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Eagles, The Bangles, Bee Gees and so many many many more whose music are so "into" me. You know what I mean. How can anyone who had lived through the 80's ignore such great music and pretend that these musics were not impactful and meaningful to their lives. I can't imagine if there is anyone around. I'm sure at least some of these masterpieces and great works of composers, song writers and lyricists still bring many good smiles and laughters to our faces. Or some of them still bring us tears. Or some of them still bring us a lot of pain and heartbreaks. Whatever it may be, these songs had left us such deep impact and the memories they bring us are etched in our minds forever.

The songs that are especially special to me are Always on my Mind, Kiss on My List, Hurts So Bad and Jack & Diane, Sweet Child Of Mine, Celebration, Karma Chameleon, Sexual Healing, Eye of the Tiger, Stray Cats Strut, Footloose, Young Turks, Waiting for a Girl Like You, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Summer of 69, Owner of a Lonely Heart, Africa, Separate Ways, Missing You, and Truly :) :). The song "Waiting for a Girl Like You" welcomed me when I first stepped my feet in the snow of Winter 1982 in Pittsburgh. The song "Young Turks" put us in trouble with the Pittsburgh Police (Heh...long story). The song "Always On My Mind" was, believe it or not, my first slow dance number, and I thought I was in love!! The song "Karma Chameleon" was the number one hit when we partied on board of a love boat that sailed on the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. Oh well.....the 80's. Such fun! Such footloose, fancyfree, carefree, worry-free and stressfree phase!

All I did was partied and partied as my friends and I were really party hard people (during the early to mid 80's). I cannot imagine why and how we could party so hard. And it was a wonder to me how I managed to get the Dean's List and President's List every semester. Must be some luck! I guess I'm a child of the "Baby Boom" era and therefore, I grew up with the songs of the 80's and they give me character and attitude in the choice of my music. The generation X babies will probably not agree. Would you agree?

If you are stuck on an island and you have to choose between your mp3 that is loaded with your favorite songs and your handphone, now which would you choose? Tough question aye? Hehehehe.

Alas.....I'm back!!

2006-04-22T18:31:00.000+08:00

Well, look like I'm back at up-dating my blog after a long break of what?? 2 months?? Yup, I think at least 2 months. Already?? Oh wow....time does fly really quickly aye? Especially when the 24 hours in a day and nite ain't enough for us to do what we want to do.

For these last 2 months, I've been like a walking zombie, with lack of sleep, with my backpains, with my mind all focussed on simply too many things at one time. All in the name of work. Trying to juggle too many "hats" at a time ain't really a good idea most of the times.

The biggest event in these 2 months was that international conference on Islamic Economics, Finance and Business for Young Scholars that we co-organized with the Islamic Development Bank in Sheraton Perdana Resort Langkawi. In fact I just got home late Thursday nite from Langkawi (the flight was delayed...again!!). It seems to me that the flights to and from Langkawi are always delayed.

Anyway, we had a good forum as it was a success and we intend to organize the same forum again next year. We hope *and keeping our fingers crossed* that our co-organizer will agree to organize it outside Malaysia. Heh. We had participations from USA, UK, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Australia, Indonesia, France and many more. It was so exciting to see so many foreigners and of course, as the Forum was targetted for the young scholars, we saw many young participants and we felt kinda old sitting next to them. Hahaha.

I had a beautiful room facing the garden and the tennis court and all (can't remember why the sales and convention manager didn't give me a sea facing room...no biggie to me actually...because I was hardly in the room anyway). But the fancy thing about that room was that I had a very kinky bathroom. The bathroom had a foldable wooden window that you can fold like an accordion to the sides and you can see the bath tub, the shower and everything in the bathroom from your own bed. So kinky huh? Just like the one in Awana Golf Resort Genting. I think that was kinda cool. So, I didn't bother about not getting a sea facing room at all because I think I had the best room.

We had a welcome dinner for the participants, speakers and guests of the conference and the theme of the dinner was "International Culture Extravaganza" where we saw some came in fancy national costumes. I was dressed up like a senorita (well, the emcee had to dress up to the ocassion la)..but of course, I had to withdraw myself from the Best Dressed Queen contest (for fairness and all). We were entertained by some cultural dancers and musicians from a division of LADA and we thought that they had put up a good show and to some extent they had some originality to their showmanship. Of course, we had so many lucky draw prizes that we gave away on that nite. I decided to withdraw myself from that too. My colleagues asked me why. Well, I thought I wanted to give more chances to the paritcipants to win the lucky draw prizes. Not unless, if the grand prize was a return ticket to Hawaii or to the Bahamas or Seychelles...or even Mauritius. Then I would definitely not discount myself from entering the Lucky Draw. As I only managed to secure a return ticket to Langkawi from KUL from one of our sponsors, then I decided that I should discount myself. Heh. Usually I can get lucky in these Lucky Draws thingy you know. The food in Sheraton Perdana Resort was great. But since I was working (and not on a holiday) I hardly could savor the sumptuous food (too bad as I was the one who had actually chosen all the menu throughout the Forum there) Sigh....that means...I must return to SPR to enjoy the facilities and the surroundings, the food etc. Yup....yup. Will do. Maybe I can do that with Cikgu in June. Hehehe.

We had organized futsal and beach volley for the guys. I had also organized netball and beach volley for the ladies, but they decided that shopping was more fun than playing games. So I had no takers from the ladies. We had a good time playing the games. I had fun just watching them play. It has been a long time since I last watched beach volley. I was the only female watching the games. Can you imagine that? My colleageus asked me to go shopping with them but I thought if I went, then who would be coordinating the games for the participants? So I decided to stay and "do work". Bwahhhssss!! But then again, most of you in da house already know me...I ain't a shopaholic...ain't biggie on shopping and therefore, I didn't miss the shops. And it was HOT, HOT and HOT and also STICKY!! And I hate that. But I managed to get the Marlboro Lites and Cote Dor Belgium chocos ( got a colleague to buy them for me). Done! I just wish I could play with the guys. They seemed to be enjoying themselves immersely. I'm glad that the games got them closer and only then I was beginning to know some of the young scholars' names.

Dinner at Jentayu Villa was as romantic as it could be. By the sea. Under the moonlight. With the sea breeze. And I had the F&B Assistant Manager to spin my all time fave CD of the 80's Earth Wind and Fire during the lunches and dinners at Jentayu Villa. He likes my CD so much so that he got it burned for his own copy. My only regret was that I never seemed to be able to make it for all the breakfasts at Jentayu Villa because our Forum started at 8.30am daily and I had to get ready for the openings of each morning segment way before our participants came into the Jentayu Grand Ballroom. And I was the emcee throughout the entire event, so you know the gig. So my colleagues would go for breakfasts everyday and they would "tapau" some danish pastries for me. But as it turned out, I would always not eat them because the ballroom guys would always get for me some donuts and danish pastries as they know that I didn't get my breakfasts at all. So nice to know that so many people are concerned about me and taking good care of me. I told my colleagues to take a slow walk along the beach to Jentayu Villa so that they could enjoy the "angin sepoi2"...the soft sea breeze that would blow gently onto their faces. They took my advice. And every morning, they would take a slow walk rather than taking the shuttle to the Villa. I asked them to enjoy the "angin sepoi2" but I personally didn't have any chance at all to enjoy it. Sigh...

The closing was simple, fancy free, no protocol, no frills, but yet it was impactful. We had the Best Paper and Best Presenter Awards and the winners of the games prizes being given away at the closing. And the closing remarks made by the Islamic Development Bank was very touching. Also the remarks made by our side (the Organizing Chairperson) was just as touching. All in all, the closing was simple but yet very meaningful. We closed with a farewell lunch at Jentayu Villa. Then we had half of the day "free and footloose". My colleagues went shopping *again* and some went on tours of Langkawi. A few of them got carried away with the tours and if the flight back to KL didn't get delay on that nite, I would think that they would have to take the flight on the next morning! Not that any of them would complain! Hahaha.

My organising chairperson told me that the Islamic Development Bank guy (from Jeddah) asked her about me when I was emceeing at the closing ceremony. He asked, "Is she a lecturer?" Then my organising chairperson answered, "Yes. She is one of our lecturers." Then he asked her again *with a blur face*, "You mean she actually teaches at your school? I mean teaching??". Then she answered, "Yes, she teaches at our school. In fact all of my committee members are fulltime lecturers." Discussion ended. Then I asked my organizing chairperson why she didn't probe further into that question. Why did he ask that question I wonder. She said, "He thinks that you are a fulltime emcee and your job is running events and being project coordinator." Aisay maaaan........Now what would I think? Is that a good comment or a bad one? Hmmm.......I guess I was too tired to go down that road. No, let's not go down that road even because it may end up into a long discussion and my telling him my past career bla bla bla. So I just let it slide. Then I told my organizing chairperson that I had some of the banquet boys who came up to me and asked me if I was a TV host or newscaster with TV3 or NTV7. I said "No". I told them that I teach. I said, "Alahai ceq....awatla pikiaq lagu tu. Kak mengajaq kat UiTM ja!!". They said that they felt like staying in the ballroom and listened to me emceeing the whole time. Whoa! Haha. Now that I could see was a kind compliment laa. Lol. Yup...I know they were just being KIND :) :)

I have always told myself that I should have long retired from being the project manager, the event organizer and coordinator, the emcee etc at our Faculty's functions and events. Because I could never enjoy the food and I would get so stressed up, more than the other committee members and I would always lose my beauty sleep at nites. Hehe. But I was told that I am the emcee, the coordinator bla bla bla for the Faculty for life...."tetap dan berpencen". Gitu! I told my colleagues at a dinner one night that I am thinking of training my downline to at least, be the emcee at future functions. I better do it real fast before the next conference in September. Now that one....it will be on a bigger scale. Thinking of exploring Sheraton Subang *wink wink to Cikgu...now that we both know who is the new GM there*. Hope to get some good deals. InsyaAllah.

One important thing that I just learned from the Middle Eastern participants and speakers at the Forum. They told me the true meaning of my name. And all these while, for the last 24 years or so (I was made to understand from my Arab friends when I was studying in Pittsburgh) that my name is Arabic means "LIGHT FROM THE HEART". But the participants at the Forum told me one night that my name in Arabic doesn't mean "Light from the Heart". Oh noooo!!! They all said that my name really means "DIM AND SOFT LIGHT". As soft as the moonlight....bright but yet soft and very nice. Hah! Lol. So, I don't know if "Light from the heart" means better then "Soft and dim light". Which one is better?? Aye?

I'm still so very tired and exhausted, even after being home 2 nights already. I have this habit, from Adam and Eve, that I would ALWAYS unpack my luggages immediately as I got home. No matter at what time I would get home from anywhere. Even from long haul travels. I would always have the energy and strength to unpack. But I haven't unpacked from the Langkawi trip yet...until now. That is just how tired and exhausted I really am. Even a 14-15 hours flight would still give me some more strength to unpack....but not this trip. I guess it's because, even 3 weeks before I went to Langkawi, my energy was draining out...busy running up and about trying to solicit for sponsorships of door gifts and prizes...plus working very closely with the printer on designs, proofing copies of our proceedings and programmes... and then the 5 nites 6 days in Langkawi was really hectic for me (again lacking of sleep and not eating properly). Immediately when I got home, then only I realised all the pains on my back, the headaches and everything and then I decided to just "shut down".

Cannot "shut down" for too long. Tomorrow, I have to pick up my final exams bundles from the Faculty to start doing marking. Oh nawwwww...:( :( Bwas!

Then there are the invigilations, then there is the Viva...then there are the markings....oh no....migraine is already attacking me. And I was just dreaming of disappearing to some idylic white sandy beach with some hottie beach bums around to save me from drowning (not that I swim! But I can snorkel. Of course with the life jacket wrapped around me. Hahaha) and my mp3 that is loaded with all of my faves from the 80's and some books to read. And the sun screen lotion. And the fruit punch. And whatever else. Now when, I wonder, could I be spared to do just that? The disappearing gig. Of course ALONE! And no handphone too. Sigh. Don't you think that it sound simply too irresistable?

Okay....earth calling!! Back to reality. Back to markings...and invigilating. Yea yea yea.....

LOVE IS LIFE..........Mwahs! Part 6 - Westin QBA

2006-02-14T10:09:00.000+08:00

As my yearly treat to Darling and June on the occasion of my birthday, we decided to check out this place called Qba at the Westin KL. It was sometime in January or February (only my posting came in late. Heh). Qba is actually a wine and cigar bar that combines a Latin grill with live Cuban entertainment. It offers Argentinean and Cuban menu, some unique tapas by the bar (not that I know what they are! Duh!) and of course, the Salsa dancing downstairs. They have this fully imported Cuban band that plays there every night. Personally I would think that the Cuban bands and the Colombian bands who had played at El Nino sounded much better and were more entertaining. I wonder if El Nino still exist? We used to party hard there...those were the days! The Cuban band at Qba (can't remember their name though) had played Latin and Cuban songs (mostly Salsa which June hated it) during their first set, but then they switched to the poppish, and up-beat songs of the more current ones during their second set. And that was when we decided that the El Nino bands were much better.

The alfresco dining area and the cigar lounge that were on the first floor were very nicely and cosily and romantically ignited with strings of cubic crystals cascading down the walls and ceiling and from where we dined, we could see the dancing floor. One of the permanent fixtures they have there that I find so unique is the statue of a huge angel. It is quite nice really.

Ahhhh....there she is....the oversized angel standing and looking down at the dancing floor and the bar.

From the first floor where we had dined.

We had a pretty good table with a pretty good view looking down to the bar and dancing floor. There were many "mat sallehs" who were dressed in "red". Everything was red. Like as if they were celebrating some company's annual dinner or some ball...or whatever.

Doesn't this antique fan remind you of some Antonio Banderas hotshot movie shot in some very authentic cuban coffeeshop or "cantina"? More so when this fan spins at a snail's pace. To me, it's just for the aesthetic beauty and values. But give me Antonio Banderas.....ANYTIME! Phew!

We had such good food at Qba and the service was good too. Food is different and unique. Ambience is very ala Cuban. Very nice. Very happening dancing floor as well. On the side of Qba is an Italian Restaurant with a very different and unique concept...it's called Pregos. You should try to hang at Qba or Pregos if you haven't yet. Chilling place.

LOVE IS LIFE..........Mwahs! Part 5 - Villamay

2006-02-04T10:37:00.000+08:00

As part of my extended birthday celebrations, as I usually do every year (Heh! Heh!), the family members gathered together to celebrate my birthday last weekend and I had chosen to go to to Villamay. It was our first time to Villamay. We all drooled all over when we entered Villamay! It is truly a sanctuary (especially for ladies...and for all romantic couples who are looking for an escapade, a private moment together, to be pampered within the surroundings of such a beautiful and serene and secluded "Villa"....truly a haven!) and our jaws dropped when we saw every corner of Villamay. When we rang Villamay's doorbell, the gate opened automatically and there at the gorgeous entrance stood Sari and Hany to greet us with brilliant smiles on their faces.

This is Villamay's main entrance. There were 9 of us (my siblings and their families) ONLY at Villamay at that time and we felt like VVIPs being treated so nicely like we are regulars there (like as if we have bonded with Hanyta and her entire staff there you know what I mean) and yet they were still professionally about their "servicing" us. We could feel the "personalised treatment" that they gave us.

When we first entered, all I could think of was "take pictures....take pictures quick!!" hahaha! The entrance was so lovely (they have this beautiful green crystal chandellier hanging off from the ceiling) and they have lined up so many beautiful burning scented candles on the floor, on each side of the walls at the main entrance. Then when I entered further, I was captivated with what I saw that nestled right in the middle of Villamay. The entire Villamay was filled with beautiful ponds that are built all around inside the villa. And you can hear the beautiful sounds of running water from everywhere...the fountains and the ponds. Got fish somemore! Errr....I really don't know what fish...the ones that the Chinese believe to bring a lot of luck I suppose.

Villamay has many to offer.....from beauty treatments, to boutique, to karaoke, to manicure and pedicure, to F&B. This is its karaoke room and we were told that they can easily take in 40 pax at one time....maybe we can have our next KOK session here huh? *wink wink*

This is MY kitchen.....errrr...not exactly! hahahaha. How I wish that this was my kitchen. This was where we had dined and it was so cosy, you feel like as if you are in your own kitchen and having a nice meal (only it is not!).

Ooooo......another one of my birthday cakes for this year. And yet I'm not putting the kilos where I should. Oh no!

Now this one....if you must know...this is my next year's birthday dress! So, try not to miss my next year's birthday bash huh? The color code for next year will still be baby blue/turquoise okay. But I will try to get a matching pair of shoes of the same color code laaa...I have one year to work on it kan *muka selamba*. Well, as the fashionable, trendy and contemporary women will always say....strut....and flaunt...and slide with the savvy...change with the chic....and blaze with the bold!! Lol.

If you cross over this little "stone slabbed" bridge, you will enter an enchanting courtyard and a Gazebo-like lounge (that is nestled in the middle of Villamay), and surrounded by that intriguing moat that I mentioned earlier that is filled with water and some good luck fish and giving you peaceful sounds of running water (good theraphy for the stressful minds...hahaha). And there are water lilies.....or is it water hycinths?? Well, whatever they may be...the greens in the water are absolutely gorgeous. And got huge "tempayans" somemore!!

This is the entrance of Villamay that I have mentioned earlier. When you enter, you can feel the "richness" of this place....you can almost feel like you are entering into some "dreamland"...because you can already feel the serenity and the peacefulness of the villa plus you can smell the soothing scents that will conquer your entire mind and body. Very nice...very nice.

June said..."hey...we can have our dance party here....the salsa and all!"

This is where you would want to be :) And you wouldn't want to come out....LOL. Well.....I can live with this!! I sure CAN!!!!

June at the gazebo-like lounge....everything is so perfect. The decor is phew! Everywhere we saw butterflies......the entire villa is adorned with beautiful butterfly motifs because it want to reflect the owner's fondness, love and passion for nature's elegance and splendor. Anis will love this place because she also loves butterflies!

So ala "Mediterranean" dont'cha think so? Villamay's landscape is so Mediterranean actually.

I simply love the gazebo looking lounge. I think I can stay here for hours with a nice book. Especially when there is a "first class service" around. LOL

Ahh.....the green crystal chandellier.....nice kan?

One side of the Karaoke room. We didn't check out the karaoke system and all...wasn't in the right crowd *ya know what I mean?*

June and our niece, Aisyah. She always have big smiles on her face all the time. That would be Aisyah.

Another angle of the gazebo lounge. I love the ivory sofas.....remind me a lot of Club Med in Maldives :)

This is D'Papillion Cafe (that is French for butterfly)...where we dined that night. The chef had prepared a very special "customised" menu for us....we had a "fusion" menu...a cross between Western and Malay. Very nice fushion indeed!

We really had a wonderful time at Villamay (plus gasping for air most of the time. Phew! Phew! Lol) and I would hope that some day the ladies can hang there for some "escapade" experience.....to detox...to unstress and unwind...in a very extraordinary environment I would think. I felt like as if I had entered into some dreamland...only that it was someone else's dreamland because I think this "dreamland" is TOO RICH for my blood. Muahahahaha!! I am definitely not made for all these pamperings!! But the dreamland was good while it lasted.

Villamay was conceptualised by the owner herself and it takes after her nickname. I love this place as it portrays calmness, peacefulness and a unique serene sense of comfort...a holistic place for the body and mind. The staff there will "let you be on your own, giving you the space you would want simply to enjoy the calmness and serenity".

Villamay reflects the owner's long appreciation of feminity and beautiful things in life as well as her natural talent for creativity. Knowing her...that is what she really is....she is very articulate with "creativity" and she is very artistic.

The only thing lacking that night was that we were all so so "dressed down". Hahahaha.

Happy 4th Birthday Little Princess Yasmin!!

2006-02-01T23:19:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE !!!! Mwahs!! Mwahs!! Hugzzz!! Hugzzzz!!

Ooooh myyyy!!!! How time flies aye? It seems only like yesterday when we all got SMSes and calls from F that CK has safely delivered a beautiful baby girl!! And now she is already 4 YEARS OLD!!! Oh wow....and just look at how pretty and sweet she is. What a babe.

Happy Happy Birthday Yasmin! Today is your birthday and it is a beautiful day because it is your birthday :). We wish we are all together in Singapore with Mummy and Daddy to celebrate Yasmin's birthday and have that big party and take lots of pictures *as always*.

We all hope that Yasmin will have a wonderful and a phantastique birthday today with Mummy and Daddy.....be sure to wear a pretty dress and wear this pretty smile always okay?

A smile that melts any parent's heart.....

May Allah SWT bless Yasmin with His love always.....

To protect and keep Yasmin safe always....

To shower Yasmin with long life, good health, more love and more happiness and joys in life. Amin.

Once again, we all wish Yasmin ONLY THE BEST....Happy 4th Birthday and may you have a beautiful birthday today. We love you Sweetie and we miss you !!!

Hugs and kisses *mwahs mwahs* from Ummi Lin, Ashue and Darling

Psssttt.....Please go to CK's blog for more stories on Yasmin's birthday....and definitely MORE pictures. Heh.

Tot Siens Adien.....

2006-02-01T13:33:00.000+08:00

This is a sequel from my previous posting entitled "Squirrel Squirrel". As I had mentioned in that posting, we were hosting our very good and dear friend, Adien (from Capetown, South Africa), who was in KL visiting us for a few days quite recently. Adien was actually on his way back to Capetown from China and this time he had stayed in KL longer than the last time when he was here about 6 months ago.

On his last night, June and I took Adien to Seri Melayu Restaurant (see the pictures below) to enjoy the delicious Malay food as well as the traditional dances that the restaurant showcases every night. The last time we took Adien there, he was too overwhelmed with the beautiful women in vibrant and flashy colorful costumes with their gracious dance movements *I think hehehe* and brilliant beautiful smiles....plus the wonderful food.....plus the restaurant's richness in decor and furnishings (as Adien has put it), that he was not able to enjoy the food....that he was simply too "drooling all over" to eat. So he said :)

And when I knew this, I immediately told June that on his last night, let us take him to Seri Melayu again so that he will enjoy the food more because perhaps then he would be less overwhelmed. I was so right. He was less overwhelmed (not less impressed. Heh) plus the fact that June made sure that he didn't eat too much at lunch so that he can save his tummy for later.

We didn't take any picture the first time Adien was there last year, but this time we came well prepared. So we took plenty of pictures. Adien had requested that I took as many pictures as possible of the cultural show so that he could bring them home and show them to Mariam and his kids. So, I was the official photographer for a change. Kah Kah Kah. But hey...the pictures turned out very nicely...considering how short sighted I am (I usually do not wear my glasses...sebab nak melawa la konon kan....Kah Kah Kah!). I hope they like the pictures alright.

At Squirrel Squirrel, Adien had tasted our coconut juice and had really enjoyed it because he said he could scoop out the flesh and eat it. In Capetown, their coconuts do not have soft flesh and therefore they can't eat the flesh like we can. And at Seri Melayu I recommended that he tasted the "Ciku" juice....I told him it's like a kiwi (close to it), only that "cikus" are brown in color. I asked him if he liked it and he said "hmmm....very different". Okay, now I'm not too sure what he meant by "different". I sure hope he meant "different" in a positive manner. Hahaha. Anyway, Adien told us that he had really enjoyed the food this time around and that he had enjoyed the traditional dances a great deal. He was even more impressed.

On the way to KLIA to send him off, Adien reminded us again on their invitation to us to visit them in Capetown. I said that since Anis was going to Capetown with her family of 10, he can consider that June, Darling and I were already there together with them! Adien disagreed and refused to accept that from us (no proxy business kind of thing). He said that if we do not accept their invite, then he will not break his journey again in KL to visit us. Oh no!! And I thought that we could "square off" with him by "proxy-ing" Anis and family. I said to Adien, "Consider that if Anis is there, then we all are there already laaa...at least in spirits."

One thing I love about the MAS flight to Capetown is that it flies off at 1.05am. Such a kewl timing. The airport will be rather quiet...and it is better...no rush. We saw Adien passed through the immigration counter and he turned to wave farewell. Until the next time, our dear friend Adien, "Tot Siens"...."Goodbye". InsyaAllah, we will see you again in 6 months' time.

The "Minangkabau" dance from Negeri Sembilan.

Another traditional dance and I'm not too sure it originates from which particular State. Sorry :(

Okay....another dance....which State?? Errr.....I'm totally lost...Geez. But I like the costumes though. Kelantan?? No?? Yes??? Whatever!

Is this a Johorean dance?? They wear like this in Johor? Maybe not. But nice kan??

Adien wanted the backdrop of the KLCC. Adien said he liked my "kain batik". Lawa ek?

Adien also wanted to take a picture with the "gamelan".

Adien indulging himself.....

June and Adien...too bad the background is too dark...but it is the restaurant at the background!

June and Adien

Squirrel Squirrel ??

2006-01-31T01:08:00.000+08:00

Have you heard of Squirrel Squirrel aka Tupai Tupai??? Yea Yea....the restaurant Tupai Tupai near the Istana Negara. Well, I have never heard of it until Rose and Anis were talking about it at Avanti when we were trying to figure out where to take Adien to eat on the next nite (after the dinner at Avanti). We asked Adien what kind of food he would like and he said, Malay....Malay...Malay! He was complaining that each time when he goes out to China, he will lose so much weight and worse, he will get more and more white hair. At the first sight I saw him at Avanti, I exclaimed out loud, "Adien!! Have you grown older during these last 6 months???". Then he said, "No, I haven't grown older....I blame all these white hair on China! Each time I go to China, I will have more white hair!". Poor him. He also told us that he had a lot of difficulties to find halal food in China and that was why when he arrived in KL, all he wanted to eat was Malay....Malay and more Malay food.

So, we (Rose, Anis and I) were discussing where would be a good place to bring him to eat all the Malay food and Anis came up with this idea of Tupai Tupai and Rose concurred it. Well, I was totally lost as I have never heard let alone been to Tupai Tupai. So, Tupai Tupai it was then! It was also an adventure for me and June. Ahaks!

Maybe some might be wondering how we know Adien. Okay, we (as in June, Darling and I) went for a holiday to South Africa in June last year and when we were waiting to board the plane to come home, we met Adien who was seated quite close to us at the waiting area. Then June, being the friendly kind of person that she is, smiled at Adien and then started saying "Hello!!". And Adien said "Hello" to her....and the rest is history :) :)

Adien said that he was on his way to China for some business and he usually takes the MAS flights. He asked us where we were from and was quite surprised to know that we are Malaysians. He said that we don't look like Malaysians. Heh. Well, I guess when YOU all go abroad, you encounter the same comments too (I'm sure). We are always mistaken for Thais, Phillippinos, Indonesians laa...whatever laaa....Aiiiyaaayaaa aye? Anyway, it was a very very long flight from Capetown to KL. With transit hours in Joberg, I believe it was like 14 hours altogether. I cannot believe how my back survived the journeys back and forth. Of course, Hush Puppy was with me all the time all the way :) We couldn't catch up with Adien during the flight as he was seated way way behind us and finally when the plane landed at KLIA, Adien told us that he would be transitting in KL on his way back to Capetown from China. So we exchanged phone numbers and we invited Adien to hang with us when he arrived in KL. And so when he was in town later, we got together and got acquainted better. I invited Anis to meet Adien and we took him to Seri Melayu Restaurant on his last night here in KL because I wanted him to know our cultures (they have the traditional dances every nite) and also the Malay food that the restaurant serves. He was overwhelmed with the beauty of Seri Melayu, its ambience, the huge buffet spread, the traditional dances, the colorful costumes and the whole works of Seri Melayu that he simply couldn't eat!! He said that he has never been to a restaurant like Seri Melayu and he was so impressed. Well, all we could say was..."We are glad that you have enjoyed yourself." Then we dropped him off at KLIA later that nite. That was sometime at the end of June last year. And we met again in January this year :)

I was hoping that some of our friends would have the opportunity to meet Adien this time around and I'm so glad that I was able to introduce Rose, Pete and Mood to him at my birthday bash. And I'm more glad that Rose and Pete managed to hang with Adien and June everyday during his 3-4 days stay in KL. Well, June was practically with Adien everyday, taking him sightseeing and shopping. And Anis joined them whenever she could. And I only joined them at nite for dinner. Heh.

On the nite after Avanti, Anis' parents invited Adien for dinner and we went to Squirrel Squirrel (that was how we had to translate Tupai Tupai to Adien. I hope he can still remember the name Tupai Tupai hahaha). We had a very nice dinner indeed. The restaurant is ala Kampung and I told Adien that that would be the closest he could see a kampung house. He has been telling us how much he wanted to see a real kampung house (the typical wooden kampung house and all). I told him that if he comes for like 3-4 days and if it falls during the weekdays, there is very little I could do to take him see a real kampung house. I hope that he could stay over a weekend and then I can take him to our UB Heights and then he can experience a typical kampung house.
Below are some pictures that we took at Tupai Tupai. The pictures are a bit dark...sorry :( The restaurant was a tad tad dark!! You know ala kampung....lampu pun guna pelita gitu. The parking area also use lampu pelita one!! Hahahaha!! Dah la I ni mata rabun.

Adien has repeatedly invited June, Darling and I over to stay with them (for as long as we like...TQ TQ TQ!), and they want to take us on the Garden Route there. That is so sweet of him and Mariam to invite us over. He said the South Africans are very proud of their Garden Route because along that route there are many greens everywhere, compare to the other routes where there are hardly any greens at all. But then he said that we may not be able to appreciate it as much as them because we are already surrounded with greens everywhere and whereever in KL. Hehehe. As true as it may be, we still would like to do that trip, InsyaAllah.

As I'm writing this posting, Anis and family (10 of them) are in Capetown now, and they were treated to a sumptuous lunch at Adien's house on the day they arrived. Anis sms me saying that Adien and Mariam and their entire family are absolutely very nice people, very hospitable, very friendly and loving people and Anis' family was treated so so well. They had enjoyed themselves immensely with Adien and Mariam's families. We wish we are there!! Sniff sniff....I'm dying to see Anis' pictures.

Anis' Dad with Adien

From left to right : Anis' parents (check out how they share the same color code...macam sedondon kan?), Adien, Pete, June, Anis, Nona Maria and Anis' brother

Another picture...all in the family. Hehehe

Adien and Pete...all smiles :) Adien was happy that he could taste our coconut juice as well as the soft coconut flesh. He said that they don't have the same coconuts in Capetown. Kasihan kan??

LOVE IS LIFE......Mwahs! Part 4 (Special Entry)

2006-01-30T12:42:00.000+08:00

I just want to say Muchas Gracias Muchachas and Muchachos and Besame Mucho!!! This is a very special entry to KC, Mobile Mom, Mariam (by the way, Mariam is Adien's wife), Seeking Solace, Iceman 3:15, and the two Anons who had dropped all your lovely comments and inputs in my entry on my birthday bash. I must admit that I have no clue whatever who Seeking Solace, Iceman and the two Anons are...but nonetheless, I thank you all so very much for your lovely birthday wishes and comments :) :)

Yes....I did have a phantastique birthday celeb and I had a whale of a time!! To respond to some of the comments made in my entry regarding how lucky I am...yes, Alhamdullillah, I feel so, so LUCKY...I feel so, so BLESSED...I feel so, so LOVED by many :). Like I said in my previous posting (PART 2), I have always embraced this philosophy in my life : If you give some love and passion to mankind, animals and the environment, you will get so much much more in return, for as long as you are sincere with the love and passion that you give. And if you are sincere, others are more sincere than you can imagine. I think many will agree with me and I'm sure that many, too, share this philosophy with me :) It is nothing new actually. Heh

KC and Mobile Mom.....Yes.....you can borrow my Tods whenever you gals want to....as long as I can borrow your Prada aye? Hehehe.

I wish you guys were there as it would have been a bigger "Blast". Perhaps next year huh? InsyaAllah :)

Look after yourselves now and may Allah SWT bless all of you...Mwahs!!

Later.....more to come.

LOVE IS LIFE........Mwahs! Part 3

2006-01-29T14:25:00.000+08:00

As promised.....the 3rd episode of my "LOVE IS LIFE" Birthday celebration sequel. This posting is more of a continuity of the birthday bash at Avanti. Because Rose sort of "complained in a very subtle way" that my previous posting at Avanti is more of pictures rather than stories. Well, I told Rose that if I had written a lot of scripts in it, then together with the 60 pictures, the entire posting will be like 10km long and I will hear CK telling me, "Wahhh....so long one meh? Then I must have my appetiser, then main meal, then the dessert with me when I read your posting!" Hahahaha. So, I thought I'd better have it more of a pictorial posting than a heavy scripting one.

But I agree with Rose that if I don't tell the "stories", then our friends wouldn't know the "goings on". Okay, so here I am trying to write more of the "fillers". (Pictures are at the bottom of this posting).

Okay, first of all, June and Anis left our place very early on that morning (like 8.30am I think) to meet Adien at Swiss Garden Hotel and to accept Adien's invitation to breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, the two ladies took Adien to KLCC, lined up and grabbed 3 tix to go up to the Petronas Bridge. Then they went up to the bridge (we always take our foreign friends to the bridge and we couldn't stop bragging about it and how they had shot the Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones movie "Entrapment" there!). Then they went shopping at KLCC (to Aseania and all). After spending some time there, they went to KL Tower where Adien enjoyed another aerial view of KL from up there. I told Zaid (another friend of ours at Capetown) that our KL Tower is higher than their beautiful Signal Hill that overlooks the city of Capetown and the ocean. Ahaks. I hope that my facts are so right :). After KL Tower, the girls took Adien to Karyaneka to observe the craftsworks there. Adien said that he really enjoyed all the craftworks there, although he said that he was very disappointed not to be able to see the pottery making because the pottery guy wasn't there at his kiosk. He used to be in the business of potteries in Capetown and he wanted to compare notes with the guy there. Anyway, he saw many craftsworks being done like Batik printing, weaving, wood carving, etc. He said that he really enjoyed himself at Karyaneka. After a tour of the city centre for almost one day, then they decided to head for Sunway Lagoon before the traffic piled up and they wanted to boast the beauty of Sunway Lagoon to Adien too. Heh.

They arrived at Sunway Lagoon around 5-ish pm and then they had coffee while enjoying the view of our Sunway Lagoon Resort. They then went to Avanti almost 8pm and that was when Darling and I joined them at the ristorante. Shortly after we arrived, Pete arrived, then followed by Rose. Cookie, unfortunately, was feeling under the weather and therefore couldn't join us at the party. After dropping off Rose at Avanti, Cookie left. The last one to arrive was Mood! Poor Mood! Since he doesn't have wheels now, he was hoping to catch a ride with Anis, but little did he know that the girls were actually playing "tour guides" to Adien in downtown. Anyway, he arrived safe and sound after taking the public transport. Then Rose told me, "Eh Lin, I overheard Mood said that he is asking for your hospitality tonite at your apartment." I said, "No sweat." Heh. Yup, he overnighted at our place as usual.

So, after all the eight of us have settled down, the Manager and the waiters were giving us the menus. We all had so much difficulties in choosing what to eat as like I said earlier, we were spoilt for choices, plus the fact that we all agreed that our Italian was a little bit rusty. LOL. So, everyone was practically studying the menu for the longest time. LOL. Finally, Rose and I decided to share our food because we know that the servings at Avanti is HUGE! So, we agreed to go for ceasar sald and cappriciossa pizza. Even Mood, Darling and Pete went for the pizza as well. The easiest one to decide on.

But like I said before, I didn't know that my birthday dinner is a set dinner all prepared specially by the Chef. June had made a special arrangement with the chef and the manager especially for me. According to June she has spent like an arm and a leg for my birthday dinner. I asked her "how much", and she refused to tell me. No wonder her money is all gone. LOL. But when my food arrived, I had decided to share it with the rest also because I have a small tummy (as you all know very well. Kah Kah Kah!). Meanwhile, Rose and I were talking to each other, "did you order that Lin?". And I said, "No, I didn't order this. Did they make a mistake?". Then both Rose and I asked Anuar and everytime when we asked him, "What is this? We didn't order this." And he would say, "Oh no worries. It comes with the salad and the pizza that you ordered." So, Rose and I said, "Alah...makan je la!!". Best giler.

Adien was overwhelmed, probably with the nice and cosy ristorante, or the company he was with, or perhaps he was just dead tired from all the sightseeings he had done with the girls all day. Poor Adien :( Mariam said that we "exhausted" Adien. Oh no!!! Well, I guess Adien has to get used to us the "Lembingers". When we hang out, we tend to stretch it a little bit past our bedtime :) :)

Mood, on the other hand, was so quiet. Since he was seated very near to Darling, so he talked to Darling more so than to us. And typical of Mood (everytime!), when we were busy taking pictures, Mood was no where to be found. He was MIA (again and again)...either talking on the phone with some babe...or SMS-ing with some girl...or simply checking out some of the waitresses at the Ristorante. So, we don't have many of Mood's pictures that nite.

According to the Manager of the ristorante, just that afternoon, they had Ning and the members of the media there, doing a press preview of Ning's latest album. Okay.....well, I'm NOT into Ning. Are you?? If you are, I think they are having Ning again ..err.....I can't remember when he said it will be. But you guys can check it out at Avanti when Ning is doing her gig there. Enjoy!!

Usually, Avanti would have their singing chef and kitchen staff performing some gigs, but unfortunately that night, they didn't have the same performance. I wonder why. But, it wasn't like we were missing them because we wanted to catch up with each other. It was also a good opportunity for Rose, Pete and Mood to get to know Adien. I'm so glad that Adien met a few of our cronies that nite as it was also my intention to introduce Adien to our circle of friends so that he would know more Malaysians and see how hospitable, friendly and warm we all are.

After eating, and gabbing and drinking non-stop, we had the "opening of prezzies" ceremony. The ristorante staff were already busy cleaning up and getting ready to call it a nite. And we were still busy gabbing and gabbing and pretended not to see the time. Heh. As usual, whenever we hang together, we DON'T know when to call it a nite! Our goodbyes are never like goodbyes. From the ristorante, we already had said our goodbyes....then at the entrance of the ristorante another loooong goodbyes....then at the hotel lobby another loong goodbyes....then at the parking area another looooong and looooong goodbyes. It is ALWAYS like that. Sometimes I wonder if are we the only ones like this..or are others just as bad with goodbyes like us? Because we are very, very BAAADD with goodbyes. LOL

Everyone had already left the ristorante when we were opening up the prezzies. Imagine how late it was already by then (on a working and a school nite somemore!). When we finally left Avanti (I would imagine how relieved the entire staff was when the last of us walked out through its door. Hahaha!), it was wayy wayy past midnite. I guess Adien was the only one who looked extremely tired because like I said...the rest of us are "so used" to these late nights. We still lingered around the lobby and the parking area of Sunway Laggon Resort Hotel.....even the discussion on "who send who home" was like an endless thing with us. LOL. Finally Pete volunteered to send Rose home and Adien back to Swiss Garden Hotel. Finally....our final goodbyes were said :) :) And the time was....geez louise.....almost 1am I reckon.

I know I'm going to boast again about all my prezzies here...but hey...they are MY prezzies from my beloved friends :) And I feel loved by so many....and that is why I will always say that "LOVE IS LIFE".....Mwahs!

This birthday card and "Angpows" were from CK, F&Y, Rose&Cookie, KC&S, and Rozi aka "Cikgu". I told them that I already have in mind what to get with the fat "angpow" from them and as soon as I've gotten it, I will take a picture of it and show you guys aye? Thank you so very much again guys! You are the best!

Ahhh....I know KC and MobileMom love this handbag and want to borrow it......the answer is "take a number please!!" Hahaha. Hey ladies.....I'm sure you all have better ones....like Prada and Coach and what not. Can I borrow your Prada ah?? I love this Tod's. Thank you so very much again Adien and Mariam!!

I love the lavender color...so so sweet. Dontcha think so? Now, lemme think. Unfortunately I don't own any wearing apparel in lavender. So, an excuse to go shopping?? Heh. Thank you so very much Anis...for this lovely dinner bag and "angpow". I told Anis the same thing that I told CK, Rose, Rozi and KC that I already have in mind what to buy with my birthday "angpows". You'll see :)

Mood has this thing with soft toys as every year, he would surely give me some soft toy!! And this year, it is a CAT... a pinky female feline!! But I love the fancy watch...kind of trendy and hip. Dontcha think so? Thank you Mood!

I love these tea/coffee mugs. They are so pretty innit? I must have my next coffee in one of these. And I love the card too....very humorous. Thank you very much Pete and Petulia. So if any of you guys come over, I can serve you coffee/tea in them aye? *wink wink*

Ahhh...my solitaire diamond earings in white gold from Poh Kong......from June and Darling. She told me that they are very expensive...so already my birthday special set dinner cost her an arm and a leg...so I guess these earings must have cost her another leg and another arm. Now I know why she was asking for some money from my brother and sister. She had a hidden agenda with Darling.....to give me so many surprises on my birthday. I was so touched la of course. She shouldn't have spent so much :). And of course, they both got for me the chocolate rich cake from Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel and the beautiful bouquet of flowers from the Hotel's florist as well.

This is the special booklet on Capricornians that June had done some research on the internet and printed it for me. The birthday card is so nice and cuddly-cute...it says "I don't know what it is you do.....But your birthdays sure look good on you!". Yep...yep...I sure agree that my Birthdays DO AGREE with me. Kah Kah Kah!! I love my birthdays :) :) :). I'm so blessed by Allah SWT. Syukur Alhamdullillah.

The personalised dinner set menu as suggested by June to the chef and prepared by the Milano-imported Chef Stefano. June is still keeping mum about how much she had paid for my food that nite.

Ooooooo.......I love my birthdays!! I love being ME!!! Dontcha agree with me? Dontcha? Dontcha?

As a small gesture of my deepest appreciation and love for all my friends who have shared my birthday with me on that nite and who have gone the extra miles and miles just to make my birthday a very special and memorable one....I gave each a simple yet a nice shawl that they can wear to our next hang out. Heh. Of course, for the guys, they are supposed to give the shawl to their wives laaa...and as for Mood, I told him to give it to his Mom, unless he wants to give it to his girlfriend *wonder if he has any since he is never done with his "shopping"*

I can never stop bragging about this....my birthday is the best ever. It is, I believe, the best birthday bash this year. I always believe that when you give LOVE and PASSION to people around you, you will get SO SO MUCH MUCH MORE LOVE in return :). What is a LIFE without LOVE aye? So....LOVE IS LIFE :) :) The BEST THING IN LIFE IS *NOT FREE THING*, BUT A SHARED THING! And love and passion is so easy to share aye? Dontcha agree with me? Dontcha? Dontcha? Aye? Huh?

Watch out for my 4th episode of LOVE IS LIFE....now I promise you that it will be an awesome sharing. Just wait and see. Hehehehe.

I guess I'll never get over the "hangover" I have from my birthday bashes.

Later....

LOVE IS LIFE.....Mwahs! (Part 2). Fuuhhyoooo hoo hoo!! We Rocked the Nite Away!!

2006-01-22T15:18:00.001+08:00

Before you continue reading my posting, I want to say this :

(WARNING!! WARNING!! This is a mighty, mighty, mighty.......loooonnnnggg posting....quite possibly it will take you a very long time to download as well as I have more than 60 pictures posted here I think. So, please, if you reckon that you do not have the patience, passion, or love, please discontinue reading this posting. You may want to revisit another time when you do have the time to spare.)

I would like to share everything that happened on January 17 at Avanti Italian American Ristorante, at Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel. Especially, to those who could not be there..it was a MEGA mistake! Hehehe. Because we rocked the place and the nite away.....eventhough there were only 8 of us!!

This is a Director's cut...not the Editor's cut...so, therefore, I'm going to give you a blow by blow, a frame by frame of everything that had taken place. Because I know that you all do not want to be spared out of any detail at all aye? So, here it is...my birthday bash "docu" that will be presented, not in a moving visual (I hope I can do that. Heh), but in still photos, that have been arranged in a frame by frame manner. I'm telling you that you guys had missed a birthday bash of the year. It was a BLAST....like Rose had said in her blog.

Oooppss...before I forget to say at the end of this all, I would like to say *again*, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, SO SO SO VERY MUCH, to all those who have made my birthday this year a perfect celebration....I cannot thank enough all of you guys (you know who you are...), for all your kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, friendship, love, and passion. Indeed, it was my hope to see as many friends as possible at my birthday bash. Unfortunately, many could not come....like CK, F&Y (in Singapore), Rozi (in Brunei), Azmanje (away in China), Lanlove and Faridah (had to work late), KJ(away performing her Haj. Alhamdullillah!), Mobile Mom and J (had to work late), Zaki (also had to work late), Shamsidar and Rosman (also had to work late), and Cookie (unfortunately he was ill). I understand that it was a working as well as a school nite and we had anticipated it to come. No worries. I'm sure we will have another round of birthday bash if CK, F&Y come back *wink wink* hehehe. I also want to say Thank You ever so much for all the lovely prezies and "angpows" from Pete and Petulia, Anis, Rose, KC, CK, F & Y, Rozi, Mood, and also my Dahlingest kid sistah and my son, Darling!! And all the beautiful birthday wishes via SMSes that I didn't stop receiving even from as early as 10pm on the eve of my birthday. Thank you! Syukur Alhamdullillah for all your friendships and love.

Ahhh....the Project Manageress, my kid sister June, arrived with Adien, and checking on the finer details of our table. She has worked so very hard to make my birthday bash a perfect one. She had arranged everything so articulately and impeccably that I believe nothing was missed out. Everybody complimented June on her superb job in arranging the bash that there was no room for imperfection. June must have learned it from me *muahahaha!*. Anyway, introducing Adien, our dear and close family friend from Capetown, South Africa, who had arrived only the night before from China, enroute to Capetown, who was so sweet enough to attend my birthday bash. I'm truly honored to have a friend who had come so far :) Thank you Adien!

Amboi... Miss Project Manageress....bossy nye dia tu haaa. Adien must be wondering what else isn't right because everything is so perfect. Thanks to Avanti's diligent and superb staff, I just couldn't complain anything. June, Adien and Anis were the first to arrive. As a matter of fact, they were already in Sunway since 5-ish pm because they took Adien sightseeing around KL and so as not to get into the massive traffic jam in Sunway (and along the highway), they decided to be in Sunway early. June had been extremely over efficient with her polite reminder service as she was sms-ing everyone reminding all not to be late....to take into consideration the traffic jam as well as the possible rainfall. So typical of June. Apparently Anis told me that all day June was on the phone with Anuar of Avanti, making sure every detail of the bash wasn't missed out.

Ahaaaa......the "Lady" has arrived!! For once, I wasn't late to my own birthday bash. Thanks to June's reminder service. It is great to see Adien again after a good 6 months I think. Oooo Miss PM (Project Manageress) is seated....after she was satisfied with everything I suppose.

Pete arrived after us...he was also "on time" (again thanks to June's SMSes). Oh boy..it was so good to see Pete again after a year. The last time we met was at my birthday bash with Yasmin's at Atrium, Sunway Lagoon, last year. At the last minute, Petulia could not make it due to family commitment. We missed you Petulia !!

Gembiranye sakan!! What a pose aye Pete and Anis?? We must frame this one laa...dontcha think so? Huh?

En Anuar, the Manager of Avanti Ristorante, showed me to my seat (apparently they had planned that I sat there to avoid me from seeing all the pleasant surprises that would come from behind me...Fuyoooo...wait till you see what I mean!). See how beautiful the table setting is. And the table cloth is in my fave color...baby blue. Exquisite. We love to go to Avanti because of its ambience, its superb service, its fabulous menu...simply sinfully delicious. The buffet is so excellent. I was treated like a Princess *a borrowed title someone gave me!*...and oh boy! I sure felt like I was a Princess *without my diamond studded crown!* Hahaha.

June and Adien sitting down looking so pretty. June was wearing a brand new kebaya that I had gotten for her for Raya but she decided to wear it to a more special ocassion *like my birthday. Yay!). Doesn't she look pretty and all? Of course, she had to sit on the opposite of me because she had to do all these "signal languages" to Anuar. Ahaks! She was the PM...the choreographer...the Director....of the bash. She called the cues. Yup. And Rose was so busy keeping me VERY BUSY that I didn't even notice when she called the cues. Maybe Rose's part was to keep me extremely busy and keep my mind away from whatever the Ristorante's staff was "brewing" aye?

Ms PM....no matter how stressful she was that nite, she still could joke around with Pete and Mood. She must have gotten the finesse from me. Heh.

A picture for the album with Rose and Adien.

Somemore picture....

And more....

Rose and the "Lady".

I said.....don't forget to take pictures. We had 5 cameras that nite. And our cameras alone (we had 2), had taken about 160 pictures in total!! Phew! Our official photographer for the nite was Darling. Poor Darling...because of that, we didn't have many of his pictures. Kesian Baby Mom :( :(

Amboi.....June and Pete posing....cun la wei! Darling insisted that he wanted to take candid shots. He said that candid shots are more original....well yeah...if I look like Miss World, I wouldn't mind. Even June wasn't so keen on this candid shots business. As it turned out at the end, candid shots or not, all of our pictures turned out pretty nice. Hehehe.

Before checking out the menu, we decided to go for the cameras first. Well...after all, everyone was dressed to kill. So we had to take lotsa pictures laaa.

I was telling Pete..."Hey, I didn't order this mocktail. How come the waiter sent me this?" Pete said.."Just drink la...compliments from the house maybe! Okay...let me take a picture of you."

We were having a difficult time to decide what to eat because everything on the menu seemed nice and delicious. Tak boleh decide la pulak....tu la, spoilt for choices. Life must not have too many choices...else we cannot decide. See what I mean here?

Again.....cannot decide!!! See what I just told you already????

See what I said already????? Anis was giving Adien a crash course in Italian language and then Italian food. Ahaks!! Mood had just given up....he decided to settle for pizza. Muahahaha. Way to go Mood. I would have done the same thing if I were spoilt for choices.

Mood was asking me "Did you order that food? What is it?". Actually I had NO IDEA!!! Because I didn't order my food. The Miss PM did all that for me. She and Darling had planned what I should be eating that nite. Fancy nye!! See Mood's pizza?? Now what did I tell ya...you can never go wrong with ordering pizza if you are spoilt for choices in an Italian ristorante. Trust me. You can go wrong with ordering a pasta especially if you ain't too familiar with its source. But never with a pizza.

Makan apa tu Mood?? Oh yes..he did order for some soup as well I think.

Adien enjoying the soup that Anis had recommended him. And he seemed to be loving it.

Rose and I had decided to share our food because we know too well that Avanti's serving comes in big portion. So we had ordered for Cappriciossa pizza (not Cikgu okay???) and Ceasar salad. So have a look at the salad. Doesn't it look like it just came from the farm??

Pete ordered some salad also...but I cannot remember what it was. But it sure looked very nice.

I thought I was sharing with Rose the salad...but instead Anuar gave me something else. And when I asked him what it was and told him that I didn't order that one...he replied "it comes with the ceasar salad that you ordered". So I said, "Oh okay".

Sharing some interesting stories...after all, we haven't hang together for a year, Pete!!

Introducing the chef, fully imported all the way from Milano, Italy....Chef Stefano Maccagno, who had so effortlessly prepared for "the LADY" her birthday dinner tonight. June and Darling had apparently planned my dinner with Chef Stefano...what I ate that night was their idea together...and Chef Stefano had prepared something very special (that isn't available on Avanti's menu at all). So, what I had that nite was a dinner set specially made for me : Marinated King Prawn Skewer served with avocado and grapefruit, Cappuccino Mushroom Soup with focaccia Biscotti, Lobster Ravioli with crab ragout and light Genovese Pesto, Baked Fillet of Black Cod Fish in Lemon Grass served with braised potato, clam jiuce, truffle oil and crispy beef bacon, Lime Sorbet, Pan Seared Chicken Roulade with Spanish Frittata and Spinach, Tiramisu parfait on Unicorn ice, and coffee and tea. Phew!! Phew!! Fuyyooo....you really think that I had finished all THAT beautiful and super-delicious food? Nahhh!!! I shared my food all around the table. It was fantastic. Chef Stefano was a brilliant chef. He came to see me to wish me Happy Birthday and to ask if I was happy with my dinner. I said, "Oh wow......i can only say oh wow!!!". That should summarize whatever I want to say to him. He was excellent. Everyone concurred that.

One more with the brilliant Chef.

Somemore with the cute Chef from Milano.

My Lime Sorbet came in this beautiful plate..it was awesome. The sorbet was awesome. Very yum yum!! We had forgotten to take pictures of all the food that Chef Stefano had prepared for me. We had forgotten! Alahai....menyesal la pulak. Can we replay?? In the movies, we can always replay.

Now.....this is MY SURPRISE...SURPRISE....SURPRISE!!!! Look at what came from behind me. A trolley with such beautiful, beautiful, beautiful surprises on it.....an exquisite bouquet of flowers that June and Darling had ordered from Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel's florist (they were white roses, white calla lilies and I don't know the name of the other flowers)...but the color theme of my bouquet was baby blue/turquiose (that matched everything else that nite...my color code hehe), then a delicious chocolate cake from the Hotel as well that June and Darling had ordered, and this absolutely awesome Unicorn *uh-huh...a UNICORN. WOW!!* ice carving that looked so so beautiful. Sigh.....everything was so perfect on the trolley. Now what did I tell ya huh? See for yourself.....

Check out my birthday dress. I decided to wear "all white" that nite. OK tak I look?? I was wearing this white kebaya (with a white tube inside), and a white Pakistani long skirt, and a Balinese shawl to take away some of the "whiteness". Okay tak?? Huh?? Adien dubbed me as "Miss Hollywood". Hahahaha! I asked him why. He said, "I have the style of Miss Hollywood". Fuyo. Thank you! Thank you!

Check out the decor and settings of Avanti. Nice kan? Cosy and romantic kan? *wink wink*

Bergambar lagi??

Weii...sudah la sikit2....

There were 6 candles on my birthday cake. I don't know why June had arranged for 6. Hmmm....maybe she thinks I'm 60 years old? Heyyyy....do I look 60 years old to you?? Huh...huh?? Hellloooo!!! But on the brighter side, I think I look pretty gorgeous for a 60 year old grand-lady aye?

This 60 year old lady is about to cut her birthday cake and she ain't sharing!! Stay away from my super-delicious and chocolate-rich cake!!

Belum potong kek lagi sebab tak nak share. Muahahaha...

Uh-huh.....last last kena potong jugak la. So there you go. The cake cutting ceremony. The entire staff of Avanti was singing the birthday song together with us. What a nite stealer we were! Gempaknye we all malam tu.

After the cake cutting ceremony, Anuar presented to me a beautifully-framed dinner set menu that Chef Stefano had prepared for me and June had taken so much effort to get it all framed up so nicely and wrapped it with my fave baby blue ribbon and all. June had printed the menu on a special art paper with a special birthday certificate. So unique, so sweet, so beautiful and such a wonderful surprise.

June and Darling had printed a very special booklet about Capricornians on this artpaper and they got it binded into a very nice colorful booklet...everything there is about Capricornians! So nice!

Look at this gorgeous unicorn....and check out what it is carrying.

This special and beautiful unicorn ice carving was carrying my lovely dessert...my delicious Tiramisu Parfait!! My dessert was specially flown to me by a lovely white unicorn (well...unicorns are white anyway....it goes with my dress aye?)...Chef Stefano also made me some lovely white chocolate that he created like an arch over the Tiramisu Parfait.....white chocolate to match my white dress. Lovely :)

Fuyyooo Hoo Hoo......my lovely dessert...tak boleh share!! Memang pun I tak share around the table. Too small a portion to share hahahaha.

Okay prezzies time !!! Yippeeyay yay!!!

Opening the wonderful prezzies...this is the best part...saving the best for last as always!

An exquisite white gold with diamond solitaire earings from June and Darling. Phew! Phew! Fanning myself......Thank you!! I love you kiddos!!

A pretty white watch from Mood....how did he know that I was going to wear all white that nite?? Hmmm.......Thank you bro!!

4 lovely glasses with herbal teas inside the glasses from Pete and Petulia. I love them!! Thank you guys. You are the best!!

A beautiful full leather handbag (Tod's) from Adien and Mariam. Fuyo oh wow oh wow!! I love it, I love it!! Thank you very much Adien and Mariam.

A very very pretty and sweet dinner handbag and "angpow" from Anis. Thank you sis. I love the bag. So la very pretty one!! When can we go partying so that I can wear the bag?? Bar Savanth maybe? Or QBA????? Hehehehe

Ooooooooooo........my lovely lovely flowers. The only bouquet I received this year :) But oh so beautiful. And so blue. June knows that blue is my fave color and so she had ordered it in a blue ensemble of assorted flowers wrapped in blue/turquiose wrappers and ribbons.

We didn't take any picture of the lovely birthday card with the FAT "angpow" (or big smackers as Darling always call it!) from Rose& Cookie, CK, F & Y, and KC & S. As well as the fat "angpow" from Rozi. But I will take the pictures and post in in my Part 3 okay. Thank you guys.

This is it! The end of my birthday bash on January 17. But hey.....watch out. This ain't the end. Because my birthday celebrations are still rocking......I'm still celebrating and this will not be the end you will hear about my banterings or chatterings or boastings about my birthday okay? Muahaha. The end of my birthday bash ROUND ONE!! Again...I had a most perfect birthday ever...and I can't ask for more. Syukur Alhamdullillah. Thank you guys and gals for celebrating my birthday with me and for making it the best ever. You ARE THE BEST!

Catch me in PART THREE......Tara!

LOVE IS LIFE...........Mwahs!! Part 1

2006-01-22T12:32:00.000+08:00

Taken at home just before we left for Avanti

Forgive me for not updating my blog for a very long time. I guess I was caught up in the hyper excitement of my birthday celebrations and I just wasn't ready to post anything yet. Yep, I know CK, Rose, KC and many have asked me to update quickly. Hehe. So, here I am! Before I post our Avanti's mega mega do.....I'm going to say this to my best-of-the-best'test', loveliest of the loveliest, dearest-of-the-dearest'test' gal buddies...CK, KC and Rose, for making those very special, lovely and dedicated entries in their blogs about my birthday.

Gals, this year's birthday is the bestest ever...EVER!! It is so perfect and I can't thank you babes enough for making my day a most special one, one that I'll never forget, and one that I'll never EVER get over the "hang over". Hehehe. You gals have spoilt me rotten :) But I ain't complaining. Hahaha!

To my dahlingest CK, Rose, Anis, Rozi, KC, there are no words to describe how happy you gals have made me feel on my birthday. I had the most perfect birthday ever in my life. You gals have made it happened perfectly. You have no idea how deeply touched I am with all your generosity and kindness in giving me all those wonderful prezies and "angpows" and more so, all your beautiful birthday and well wishes and prayers for me on my birthday :). You guys are the greatest of best buddies and I pray that we will remain sisters forever.

Thank you, Thank you and Thank you a zillion for your friendship, sister-ship, and most of all your love. I love you babes! Stay beautiful always aye.

I have received so many beautiful SMSes (from bloggers in the house, from Lembingers who are not in the house...and common friends)...all I want to say is "Thank you a zillion" for all those wonderful messages and "doa" for me. You guys have made my day and I cannot thank you enough. Syukur Alhamdullillah for all your love. LOVE IS LIFE for me!! Mwahs!

Please visit CK's, KC's and Rose's blogs for more stories okay. Oh by the way, it is okay to "steal" photos from my blog KC dahling! No worries...boleh ambek lagi. Hahaha. I love all your special postings for me CK, KC and Rose. Thank you once again :)

More to come....I promise!

New Year Celebration - 2006 !!

2006-01-07T03:54:00.000+08:00

More for the albums!!!

(Serious WARNING !! This is a mighty loooong posting.....therefore, if you do not have the luxury of time to read now, please revisit when you do have the time to do it. Otherwise, simply enjoy the photos...and skip the storymory...hehehehe).

As promised, the best has come. Yup yup.....our New Year celebration story with loads and loads of pix that we want to share with our beloved friends. All we can say is that, we had an awesome time....oooeeee!!! What a blast!! And oh boy was it a big mistake that you guys did NOT hang with us on that nite. Lol.

Okay, let's skip the storymory and get to the pix first......then the storymory at the end of this posting huh? Now, you simply have to see photos of Rozi and Anis. They looked so so glamorous and stunning and soooo sexy! Especially Rozi, with her hair and face all made up...total make over babe :)

Before I go on, I must say this to our dearest friends....CK, Feisal, Yasmin, Rose, Cookie, KC, Shahrul, Mobile Mom and hubby, Sheryl, Noreez, our Lembing friends who aren't in the house, plus others here in the house, we wished you guys could have joined us. The nite would have been more happening if you guys were there :)

This was captured wayy after the countdown. It was at the lounge of Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel. That is (from left to right), June, NN, Darling and Rozi sitting in the middle. Ummmpppph....we DO NOT know the two ladies who were smiling behind us....so, me can't introduce them here laa. What did I tell you about Rozi huh? Cun melecun kan?

We simply lurve Anis' golden blouse...check it out. From left to right: Anis, June, Rozi (sitting down) and Darling.

Hah! Need no more introduction!

Regret-me-for-not-getting-the-make up artist. Boo Hoo :(. Pssttt...June said Rozi looked like a film star. Fuyoooo!!

Waiting for the countdown at Rainforest Bistro, Sunway Pyramid. Good for Darling, they were showing Manchester United footies on the big screen....and the DJ was absolutely a "Dahling" to spin for us some of our requests (June kept on sending her requests....our table was the most popular one that nite because the DJ kept on announcing June's name...Hehehehe)

Amboi!! Loving nye adik berdua nih haaa....(as always la)

These two ladies went ALL the way out that nite....dressed to kill habis2an gitu. Made me so la jeles!

Errr.....like I said, I think I looked so "dressed down" compared to Rozi who looked so stunning that night.

At Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel Lounge

At Rainforest Bistro, waiting patiently for the countdown

Anis at Rainforest Bistro

At our hotel room

We checked into two adjoining rooms at the Pyramid Tower Hotel in Sunway on the evening of the 30th. We were trying to recall when was the last New Year celebration we had together...and believe it or not, it was like 8 years ago....in 1998/1999.Because Rozi said, it was definitely before she went to Brunei...so hey....8 years ago! Oh wow...where did the time go? You mean it has been 8 New Years?? Already?? Already??? Oh wow...I'm sure CK and Feisal will remember...it was at RP, Hyatt Saujana. That was the LAST New Year celebration we had as a group. My oh my. Okay, I need not be reminded how much older I am now...boo hooo !!

On the 3oth nite, Anis and Rozi went to a New Year gala dinner in downtown. June and Darling went to catch some midnite movie at Pyramid Shopping Mall...and me? Sitting all alone in the hotel room....watching TV ( or trying very hard to)....reading a book (that too, I was trying so very hard to do). I was actually doing a lot of thinking....and a lot of thinking....and some more thinking. Well.....2005 was coming to an end very fast and 2006 was just around the near bend. So, of course, I needed to do a lot of thinking....actually a lot more of "reflections". Heh. I wasn't in the mood to celebrate anything that nite (I was more interested to do a lot of thinking and doing a lot of reflections), so I decided to stay in the room. Actually, I had bought a ticket to that New Year Gala that Anis and Rozi went. It was a good thing that I didn't go because the girls went clubbing to Bar Savanth after the Gala dinner, and my back probably could not have endured it. Hahaha.

We had spent a very lazy New Year's eve in our rooms. Mostly gabbed and more gabbings and busy trying to decide what to wear that nite. Spoilt for too many choices!! We purposely did not make any reservation for dinner or even decide on where to hang after the dinner. We all agreed that we should just go with the flow of the nite. We felt that we should not plan anything for the nite but just "play it by ear" kind of thing. We only went down from our hotel rooms around 9.30pm and then we decided to walk to Pyramid Mall to find some good restaurant to eat. Earlier I called up Avanti Restaurant (the Italian Restaurant at Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel) and I made some enquiries about the NY dinner, and boy was I shocked to know that they were charging RM179++ per pax for dinner that nite. So, we decided that we wouldn't want to spend our good money on some artsy and fancy food at Avanti because we have small stomachs (really!! No kidding!!), and no way can we whallop 7-8 courses of food. Rozi and Anis said, "No way can we eat power wearing tight evening gowns!!". Yup....I agreed. Hehehe. So we ended up at Rainforest Bistro. Actually, Rainforest Bistro (Man Utd joint) is one of our fave restaurants and hang out places because we like the food there and it has a very nice and cosy ambience...and got footies some more (Lol)...and music, music, music!!! Yayyy!! We got a very nice table...and so we thought "going with the flow and playing by ear" was a fantastic idea.

Before the countdown, I was busy sending SMSes to wish the people I love most, my family, friends and colleagues a very Happy New Year. But the connection was "Bad!!". Yeah...it is a common problem. People on the streets and the surroundings of the Pyramid Mall were cheering so loud and playing with party stringers everywhere. It was rather happening. We stayed at Rainforest Bistro for a while and then decided that we had enough (when many were about to get half drunk already...that was our cue to go off. I wouldn't want to get in the way of some of the party hardy youngsters. Heh). Then we went back to the hotel and stopped by for a bit to listen to the live band at the lounge before we went upstairs to our rooms.By the time we got back to our rooms, it was almost 2am.

Then, these people decided to go for some roti canai and teh tarik at the mamak restaurant across the hotel. I said, "you guys go ahead because my back says enough of partying tonite". They went for supper and I had to find my Hush Puppy :( LOL. While they were at supper, I was left alone in the room to do some more thinking and "reflections". When they came back, we gabbed and gabbed non-stop. I cannot understand why we have so much to talk about. But we always do!

We checked out at 1pm the next day. Then Rozi went shopping for a bit before we went home. We had a fantabulous time... a ball of a time....eventhough it wasn't anything fancy, but the most important thing is that, we had so much fun together. I would like to wish all a very Happy New Year. May 2006 give us more happiness, love and peace to our lives.

A Beautiful Poem!

2006-01-07T02:15:00.000+08:00

I Love You This Much......

Enough to do anything for
you ~ give my life, my
love, my heart, and my
soul to you and for you.

Enough to willingly give
all my time, efforts,
thoughts, talents, trust,
and prayers to you.....

I love you enough to want to protect
you, care for you, guide you, hold you,
comfort you, listen to you, and cry
to you and with you.

Enough to be completely comfortable
with you, act silly around you, never
have to hide anything from you, and
be myself with you.

Enough to share all my sentiments,
dreams, goals, fears, hopes, and
worries ~ my entire life with you.

Enough to want the best for you, to
wish for your successes, and to hope for
the fulfillment of all your endeavors.

Enough to keep my promises to you
and pledge my loyalty and faithfulness
to you.

Enough to cherish your friendship,
adore your personality, respect your
values, and see you for who you are.

I love you enough to fight for you,
compromise for you, and sacrifice
myself for you if need be.

Enough to miss you incredibly when
we're apart, no matter what length
of time it's for and regardless of the
distance.

Enough to believe in our relationship,
to stand by it through the worst of
times, to have faith in our strength as
a couple, and to never give up on us.

Enough to spend the rest of my life
with you, be there for you when you
need or want me, and never, ever
want to leave you or live without you.

I love you this much.

Hanging Out At Alexis on Boxing Day!!

2006-01-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

Amboi!! Cik Adek dua orang ni!! Cun nye gitu !! This is (from left to right), Rozi and Anis.

Recently, on Boxing Day, we hang out at Alexis in Bangsar. After so much had been said on CK's blog about how she misses Alexis' Pavlovas etc, so we just HAD to go there and eat their delicious food. It has been yonks since the last time we hang out at Alexis. None of us could recall exactly when the last time the gang had some fun there. But June will always remember her birthday cake that came from Alexis, the merengue, yes!!

It was supposed to be a late lunch hang out with the gals. But as you all already know too well about us (we are quite not the punctual kind of people), so late lunch (that was planned to be at about 2-3pm), turned out to be a very very very late lunch (at 4pm). But we didn't mind because there were only us (as in me, June, Darling, Rozi, Anis and Rose).

We decided to hang for a few reasons...firstly, Rozi was back in town from Brunei (Yayyy!!)..secondly, I wanted to give to Rose the baju sembahyang and to Anis, the soft shawl that I got for them in Jakarta ....thirdly, it was a HOLIDAY and it warrants a celebration!! Hehehe. Rose was the last one to arrive...bringing a bag full of cookies. The cookies were absolutely delicious. I must ask Rose if she and her partner had baked them...because the macademians, walnuts, raisins, etc were absolutely in wholesome and super delicious. We also "sapu" Rozi's cookies (Sorry Rose....she went home without the cookies and we just couldn't resist them...but we did save some for her eventually. Hahaha). Thank you, thank you dear Rose. I would like to think that you and your partner baked them :)

As per CK's request (that one of us must order the Laksa Sarawak and we eat for her), Rose had ordered the Laksa Sarawak so that she could eat it for herself and for CK as well. We thought that the Laksa Sarawak didn't taste quite as nice as the one Mood's mother had made for us a very long time ago. That one was super delicious. But someone from Kuching told me that if you want to eat some nice Laksa Sarawak, the Kuching's airport serves delicious Laksa Sarawak. Okay, someone has to concur this statement. I've never eaten the Laksa Sarawak in Kuching Airport before. So, is it true?

We ate and ate so much. I ate my usual, regular fave Alexis' nasi ulam...June had some pasta...Rozi had some fish.....Darling had some steak. But the best has yet to come. Of course, we had to save the BEST for last....the MERENGUES!!! Hehehehehe. I had to share a merengue with Rose because they ran out of merengues (at 5pm!!! Already???!!!!). June whallopped hers....and Anis too. They didn't seem like they wanted to share with others. Yeah, you can kill for Alexis' merengues and pavlovas. But too bad for us they didn't have the pavlovas on that day. But to me, the merengues are good enough :)

We would like to share our good times hanging out at Alexis with the rest of our gang who could not be there with us (but we know that you were there spiritually, especially CK, Feisal, Yasmin, KC, Shahrul and even Cookie. Thank you!!). So, people....here are the pix. Wish you guys were there :( We missed ya guys biggie! *Mwahs*

From left to right : June, Anis, NN and Rose
(Notice the empty table?? That's because we had eaten everything!)

From left to right : June, Anis, NN and Rose (konon nye nak ambik gambar using different treatment la....tengok la hasil si amateur nih)

From left to right : Darling, Rozi and June

From left to right : Darling, Rozi and June (nite shot treatment...hehehe)

NN and Rose (with those huge roses!!! And so red some more!)

NN and Rose (check out those beautiful huge red roses. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous? I love them. How come they don't have such huge red roses on Valentine's? Maybe they have....but I don't receive them. Ahaks!)

After eating at Alexis, we went to Blook (there are two Blooks around the corner of Alexis and we went to both). Anis and Rozi were having a swell of a time shopping for party dresses...they didn't seem like they wanted to stop trying the dresses on...and they eventually bought so many pieces (especially Rozi). I think, those dresses should last Rozi for another 3 years! Hahaha. Anis had to split to meet her friends who were hanging out in TTDI for teh tarik. She wanted us to join and hang with them, but I decided that my back just simply had enough for the evening. And so we said "later" and went home. Rozi decided to hang with us at home...and we ended up gabbing (as per the normal practice whenever she hangs at our apartment) till dawn. This hang out, is of course, the prelude to our New Year celebration :) The best has yet to come. You'll see....heh.

Jakarta Trip - Oooohhh What A ..........???

2006-01-03T19:16:00.000+08:00

Okay....I've been offline much too long....Yes, I got all your messages asking me to get off my *toot* (that's butt...hehehe), to start updating !!! Okay....copy that...roger!! So here I am, with my newest update....of course, the Jakarta trip. Sigh.....what can I say about this particular trip? Hmmmm......*I can't think*.

I always say that pictures say more than a thousand words...so, enough said with all these pictures? You think?

Let's recap...we left for Jakarta on December 12. As usual, I never sleep before any trip that I would be making. I seemed to remember everything at the eleventh hour...it's like "ooppss...I didn't remember to do this.....oh naww!! I didnt do that one!! Nawww!!!" And it will go on and on and on.....everything that I must do before any trip, I would only remember at the last minute. And because of that, I would always get so stressed up and so worked up *it's like...okay STAY away from me if you can kind of thing*. Usually June would be making the whole long list of all the "what-to-dos". Darling is the kind who wouldn't give a toss to packing or even to think of "what to bring or what to do before going off on a trip". He usually needs like an hour or two to get this stuff packed (with under garments, socks, toiletries etc packed in airtight ziplocks and all...how he does it, don't ask me.) But because June didn't come with me to Jakarta, so I had no "what to do" list :(. And at the end, I ended up not being able to sleep all nite doing whatever it was that I was doing (which I can't remember now if you ask me), and by dawn, I realised that there were still hundreds of things left to be done. And the office just simply couldn't stop calling!! Oh nawww :( I was so desperate to get the phone off the hook or to redirect all my calls to some unknown number and the callers would get messages like "I'm sorry, you have dialled an incorrect number. Please try again...beep!!". And my sisters were not being helpful at all...they were calling and calling and asking "Hey.....what time want to come ah?? The plane leaves at 4pm laaaa!! Yakkety yaahh". At that moment, I felt like asking June, "Do you want to use my tix?"

Finally, we arrived at the airport on time...and safely of course. My sister was hoping to bump into Kris Dayanti (fat chance!) who could be on the same flight with us (extremely remote I would say). The flight (my first time on KLM) was quite smooth, but the cabin crew were not as friendly as our very own MAS cabin crew (as expected). Upon touchdown at Sukarno International Airport, our nitemare began. Hahahaha. I still laugh my heart out whenever I think of Jakarta. First and foremost, me and my sister flew on KLM, whilst my sister-in-law flew on MAS (because she is an MAS staff..she only gets to pay some 10% of the tix). KLM landed first and then only MAS. We had to wait for my sister-in-law to touch down. Because of that, we missed our airport transfer to the hotel. As we were desperately looking for our airport transfer, some local men (obviously cab drivers etc), lured us to their vans at the parking lots, and said that they would take us to the hotel (in spite of us telling them so many times that we were waiting for our airport transfer). We got scolded by them !! Imagine that. As blunt as I am, I thought that that wasn't the place for me to argue with them. Heh.

Our hotel, the Ibis Mangga Dua is located in a rather notorious area (especially at night), and we were advised by so many of the locals to stay inside the hotel area when night fall. Anyway, we were not even thinking of taking a hike down the alley at night. I mean, it wasn't exactly a pretty sight. Not long after we checked in, our tour operator called us and he was ready to take us to a Nasi Padang restaurant somewhere near the uptown area of Sarena, followed by a foot reflexology. Oh myyy....to me, I think the foot reflexology was more "appetising and fulfilling" than the nasi padang :). The boys who gave us the foot reflexologies were not much older than my own students...they said that life is very hard there. Yes, I can understand. It is sad.

HARD ROCK CAFE JAKARTA Fuyooooo!! Madonna babes!! Check out the heavenly figure....

Okay....this is of course, Hard Rock Cafe Jakarta. We went there on our last day. I'm such a sucker for HRC and Planet Hollywood Tees, y'know! So, I just HAD to get some. Managed to get some Tees and a jacket with a hood on it. They have a very nice place. But I prefer the HRC in Kuta Beach, Bali. I think it is fancier and much bigger.

Ahhh yesss !!! Tis is exactly my motto :). Music For Life. My life will be less happy without music (especially my kinda music) because I relate to music a lot. I'm sure that many will agree with me.

This is my sister, Aya (on the left), and my sister-in-law, Misah, on the right. In the middle is that guy who works at HRC (sorry, we didn't get his name).

Somewhere near the HRC, I saw this beautiful store with all these musical instruments. And at that mo, I could only think of Darling and June. Because I know Darling will go krazi over the drums and June will go half krazi over the congas at the far right. I know that many have heard from her about her stories where she spent a Summer in Ghana to learn how to play the African percussions, bongos and congas and whatever. So, I reckon that they both would go gaga if they saw this store. I took a picture to show them. Heh

Aya and Misah posing happily at this posh and high class shopping area. It was a gorgeous shopping mall, I must say. Things were rather expensive here I reckon, and so, we didn't shop anything (except for the HRC tees). Ohh...but we did get some cigarettes from here because apparently, they are far far cheaper than even in KLIA. So we decided to get some Marlboro Lights, Sempoerna, and whatzit name cigis that I can't remember...they were all for our friends!

Misah, Aya and Irda (our "babysitter-cum-guide" in Jakarta. Irda is the younger sister of Kak Rose, Aya's good friend). We were very glad to have Irda on the first day in Jakarta because we needed someone to take us around to get some of the stuff that we wanted to buy plus other stuff whom our friends "kirim". We managed to get the baju sembahyang that we wanted (well, I got like 10 pasangs!!! I don't know why...don't ask), the scarves, etc...from watzit shopping mall....plus some other stuff that were NOT in our shopping list. Duh!! And on the first day alone, we each had to buy an extra luggage. I am never going to do this again!

Introducing my buddy for life....Hush Puppy :). I never leave home without my Hush Puppy. Most people will not leave home without their Amex (well, anyway, I don't have an Amex hahaha). But for me, I would never leave my home without this little guy. He is actually my hot water bag. There is a little opening space in his tummy where I can put my hot water pack inside his tummy (that way, people will not be able to see my ugly red plastic hot water pack that I bought from Guardian Pharmacy) and then I will lie down on HP or simply put HP at my back as I lean back on some chairs. It was kind of funny when the KLM stewardess asked me, "How long has he been travelling with you?" Hahahaha. I was so so blushed. I had to explain to her that HP is actually my hot water pack for my aching back. Heh. Don't ya think he is sexy?? And cute??

It was just a short breakaway....away from our families for a while. But even then, June was complaining why did I have to go away so long. 4days/3nites are not that long. But I felt that it was like forever. I was desperately wanting to come home as soon as we checked into the hotel. First of all, I was so sad that both of my handphones' batteries, the Nokia and Sony Ericksson, cannot be charged in the hotel room. I asked for the adaptors twice from the housekeeping, and I tried all the points inside the room, I still couldn't charge the batteries. So, on the second day, my handphones' batteries were so so weak that I was advised to only sms when utterly necessary :( I wasn't happy at all without my handphones.

Then we had culture shocks everywhere in Jakarta. Hahaha. Mostly the toot toots..they were going crazy all over the roads...zig zagging and weaving through traffic like it as kewl. They gave us so many scares on the roads. I would never imagine myself being inside one of the toot toots. And the pollution....ohmigawd! I won't even try to explain how horrendously ugly the pollution problem there. We should count our blessings here! Aya and Misah managed to eat what they went to Jakarta for (the watzit name.....ahhh...okay, me forgot! They are some Indonesian's local delights and whatever.) I am not phunky on food...so I told them that I'd pass. So I waited for them at the hotel while they went to eat at one of the mall's food court. Aya really enjoyed the foot reflexologies in Jakarta and they are very very cheap. She had her feet massaged everyday.

Our final nitemare in Jakarta was that the airport transfer didn't come to pick us up from the hotel to send us to the airport. We waited so patiently for hours but in vain. Finally we decided to take the hotel's limo to the airport before we missed our flights. We were rather upset with the kind of service that our agent had given us. We told the "supir" to do a Michael Schumacher gig (he said "ngak bisa Bu...sekarang ni machet...orang pulang dari kantor!!". Ohh nawww!! We said that we couldn't afford to miss our flights (both MAS and the KLM flights were the last ones out of Jakarta into KL for that night). But Alhamdullilah...we arrived safe and sound at the airport at the nick of time too, I must say. MAS flight was supposed to depart at 6.25pm. We arrived at the airport at 5.45pm! Misah was as white as you know what...as she was quite certain that she would not be allowed to board the plane. Lucky for her, MAS flight was delayed on that nite. Phew! And our KLM flight was supposed to leave at 6.55pm. We arrived at 5.45pm. And we were told that the agent would be waiting for us at the airport to reimburse our airport transfer that we had paid to the hotel's "supir". We waited for a little while for the agent, but of course "no show" la. Now this is the thing with Jakarta Airport, the queue into the "check in" hall is like 3kms long....and they seemed to open only one entrance (for some reason). And we don't understand the system there...no proper signages as far as where to go for this airline...or that airline...bla bla....so we were in the 3kms long queue. And in my heart I was wondering "weiii...bila nak habis orang beratur nih?" Because it looked like as if it wasn't going to clear....the scanner was slow....the airport staff were slow with their responses and cooperation. Clock was ticking...I know!! Then me and Aya were talking and one of the airport staff overheard our conversation and then he asked ,"Ibu mau kemana? Naik pesawat MAS atau apa?". Then I said, "mau ke Kuala Lumpur pesawat KLM." Then he said, "Ohhh Ibu udah salah..Ibu bisa guna Gate 3 di sana..." Then I thanked him like no end...and Aya and I rushed all the way (like another 1km away....okay...over estimated la) to Gate 3. There we saw "KLM". Thank you thank you!! We put our luggages through the scanner. Then as I went to the KLM counter to check in our luggages, Aya went to the money changer to get some Rupiahs to pay our airport taxes. We had anticipated that our luggages would be overloaded (true enough....by 11kilos...ONLY!). The lady said that she was about to close the flight for check in in less than a second...and I begged her not to close yet. While waiting for Aya to come back with the airport taxes, I was counting my blessings all the way. The lady let us go without paying for the excess baggage. Phew! We ran all the way to the KLM Gate....and Alhamdullillah, we were seating nicely in our seats after that. Aya had a nice seat beside some Indonesian national cricket player who flew into KL for some game with our very own national cricket team. And I had a seat beside some Indonesian Chinese women who were prolly on vacation here in KL. On the flight, they ordered for some watzit liquor or wine...or scotch...or whiskey....or brandy. I can never understand if there is any difference between these drinks. Are there? Anyway, one of the ladies must have had a tad too much, because during landing (which was rather smooth I must say), she threw up!! Oh nawww!! First timer flyer? Or she had a tad too much to drink?? So gross.

As you can see, I am not posting any of my pix here. It is because I wasn't really happy in Jakarta. When I left for Jakarta, my head was full of worries, and my heart wasn't really calm....there were many things on my mind at that time. It was rather a bad timing for me. Plus the fact that my back was giving me so much pain. We walked non stop...carried so many shopping bags (too many I think)....after I came home, even till now, I'm paying a high tolls on my back due to the Jakarta trip :(. I have been having so many injections and popping in too many pain killers...I could never have enough rest to recuperate from the strains, stress, and injuries that I had. And now, I'm back in school!! Bwaaahhss!! Where got time to fully rest?? Boo Hoo....

Mostly, it is also because I had left my HEART behind....where it belongs! Sob sob sob....the next time I go on vacation, I must bring my heart with me :) There is no vacation without a heart. But, all in all, we ladies, had some fun for sure. To some point :) It is a haven for shopping, ladies. But watch your backs. Better still, bring along some strong muscles. And even better still, if they are hunky dudes!

Psssttt....perhaps the ONLY one thing we really enjoyed about Jakarta is that, their national TV airs this morning daily show (equivalent to our own Kisah Benar)...they call the program "Gugurnye Sebuah Iman" or something like that. That show is so so kewl...that we would wake up very early for Subuh (then will not go to sleep)..and would wait by the TV for that show to come on air. When the show ended at 10am, only then we would go out shopping or whatever! I tell you, I enjoyed that show so much (I do not even watch our own Kisah Benar)....so much so that we asked Irda to go look for the DVDs and send to us....who knows they may compile them into some DVDs. Hahahaha!

Away in Jakarta for a Few Days :)

2005-12-12T07:08:00.000+08:00

Heyy guys....just wanna wish you all a brilliant and happening week ahead. As for me, I shall be away for a few days from today until late Thursday nite. Hence, I will be offline for a bit okay. So please keep those blogs going :)

Oh by the way, I managed to find us a "babysitter" Hehehehe. Kewlness aye?? *wink wink*

So, you guys rock the week huh?

Have fun, chill out and hang loose :)

Toodles ...
NN

Lembing Gathering.....Sure Gempak...Sure Hebuh...Sure Kecuh !!!

2005-12-12T05:44:00.000+08:00

Yoh Lembing Dudes and Dudettes !!! Very sorry.....this is also another one of those OVER OVER OVEEERRRDUUEE posting and pix :( :( :( Me so very la sorry. Tapi ada baik gak I post lambat.....nak kasi CK and Feisal "BIG HINT" advance notice that the next Lembing mega birthday bash is just LESSSS than 2 months away.....hehehehe. So buat la plan apa yang patut ye CK Dahling *wink wink*. We all nih memang la menunggu you all come back to KL so that we can have another "gempak", rock da house thingy, Lembing one-of-a-kind gathering :) :)

And what better ocassion than to celebrate Yasmin's and *ahem ahem* birthdays aye?? So it has to be in end January or early February la babe! And I hope that these pix will entice you to come back to KL. Lol.

Now tell me if there is any other gathering that can rock da house louder than us here in these pix. See for yourselves. Ini pun Lembing's quorum tak cukup tu.....so many did not turn up. But whatever it is, as it was also my birthday celebration (with Princess Yasmin, my God daughter), if I didn't thank ALL of you enough on that nite (and thereafter...), please accept my sincerest Thank You So Very Much for the most happening, and "gempak, kecuh and hebuh" birthday party ever :) :) And I'm more grateful and happy to meet Camus and gang (MCKK guys and partners) on that nite as well. I hope that we can have a similar gathering next year okay?

Birthday Bash for Yasmin and NN at Sunway Pyramid Tower Hotel, Feb 05, 2005

Yasmin is going to blow her candles anytime soon...but Uncle Cookie is distracting her laaa...
Look at Yasmin's choc cake.....so yummmmyyy....Wow...berapa calories ah? I wonder if Yasmin ate all the cake by herself or did Mummy help her out a tad bit?? Hmmmm...

This is prolly my 5th or 6th birthday cake this year....I think I must have had like more than 5 cakes in total for this year's birthday. Don't ask me how come I got so many cakes...perhaps I celebrated more than 5 birthday parties this year alone...as I usually do every year laa Muahahaha. But this choc cake from Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel is a to-die for...trust me. Forget about the calories...after all, it is only once a year thingy :)

This was my 1st birthday cake this year....marble cheesecake from Secret Recipe...think we had the birthday celebration at home...or was it at Victoria Station.....I can't recall. But whatever it may be....this cake was my first birthday cake for this year :)

Look at all these charming ladies.....that is Anis, KJ, Faridah and NN. Strike a pose ladies !!

The only rose among the thorns is Neeza (CK's dahling sister), Mood in the middle and Cookie on the left. Makan apa ek?? Bersepah je meja.

Amboiiii Feisal.....he is prolly checking out Mood's stomach to compare with his. So, whose tummy is bigger? June is of course being the "batu api" that she is laaa..Hahaha

The MCKK boys (Jabb, Rizal, Myoi and Camus)....with Rose (in the red scarf) and Sheryl (in black blouse, next to Rose).

Cute nye la weiii......Yasmin!!! So pink from top to bottom. She is so adorable and so well behaved. Next year Min celebrate birthday with Ummi Lin again okay??

These two pretty ladies dah kenyang sebenarnye...sebab tu laa, they look so very happy and all smiles :)

NN having one of the rare moments to chit chat with Rose.
It is always the case....we can hardly catch up with each other because there are so many distractions aye Rose dear?? So let's hang at Alexis soon huh??

Mutant Mood....having weird ears...Suzie (CK's another dahling sister) is having fun making fun of Mood. Heh.

Apa laaa tu ladies...KJ and Neeza tak nak share joke ke?? How come I missed this one huh? Where was I then?? *Blur me*

Mr Dictator Zaki always have funny stories to tell...never fail to amuse us anytime.

Pete, June & NN. One for the album!!

That's NN, Manje (with June behind Manje), Mood (with Darling behind Mood), and Feisal (with Neeza behind Feisal). See....the coffeehouse is all empty....everyone has gone home and we are still gabbing and having coffee for God knowshow many rounds !!
We were very high on caffeine already !

Orang dah tutup kedai weii....but we were still "tak reti bahasa" !! Didn't we order another round of fresh coffee? I could have sworn that we did right??Another round of fresh coffee?? Actually we were waiting for the invitation to LEAVE the coffeehouse from the restaurant manager LOL.

NN catching up with Manje, Lanlurve and wife, Faridah.

Darling's 1st brithday cake this year. Another marble cheesecake from Secret Recipe.

Darling's birthday cake from Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel....I can't remember how many celebrations he had this year also. Because I think he had celebrated more than 5 times this year alone...with me and my family and with his Daddy and their side :) So, this could be his 5th or 6th birthday cake?? Untung nye dapat celebrate banyak kali ek?

I got these 3 beautiful pink roses when we celebrated my birthday at Victoria Station. Lovely aye? I don't know where all my birthday basket flowers pix have gone to. I can't seem to find them...perhaps they are accidentally deleted from Darling's digital camera :( Bwahhsss :( :(

Vacation in Jimbaran Hill Resort, Bali - November 2004

2005-12-12T02:46:00.000+08:00

This is an overdue posting (Hahahaha!!). I had been meaning for the longest time to post this little story about our vacation that we took to Jimbaran Hill Resort in Bali last year, but I guess time took the better of me. I never seemed to have enough time :(. But anyways we would love to share these photos with our friends and like they say, better late than never. Lol.

On the third day of Hari Raya Aidil Fitri in 2004, my mom, Darling, June, Anis and I went off for a vacation to Jimbaran Hill Resort in Bali and it was an awesome holiday. It was a long 8 days and almost everyday we were pampered by Dewi and Seri who would come over to our beautiful villa and gave us absolutely a to-die-for full body massages, Balinese style. It was like heaven on earth!! Then we went over to the resort's spa for the "mandi lulur...air yogurt and whatchamacallits...". It was FUYOOO !!!! Lain kali kalu nak pergi ke Bali, tak payah buat benda lain...massage massage and massage until the day you have to go home. I guess that is what Bali is all about. But a friend of mine told me that she had tried massages in Bali, Jakarta and Medan and she said "can't challenge the Medan's massage!!". So I guess I have to see if she is right then :) :) :)

Anyways, my mom is the happiest one to have gone on that vacation because until now she still say that her best memories of Bali is the massage...more massage ....and more massage. Of course Darling is the one who didn't seem to enjoy much because there was no Adidas or watzit skateboard brand (that Ozie brand) that he was looking high and low in Bali but couldn't find :(. Anyways what I enjoyed most is Ubud !! Hahaha. Anis and I were talking that if we return to Bali, we have to do a few nites in Ubud. Yes yes yes!!

Our villa in Jimbaran Hill Resort is first class :). It is a lovely bungalow on a hill top with a huge huge master bedroom and a second room plus a huge living area that house these two lovely Balinese day beds (that Darling slept on), and it has a very cosy kitchen...and the best of all is that it has a private swimming pool (as you can see from the pix below). We were so so busy everyday that we hardly used the pool, but I simply had to make sure that I took a quick dip before we left, and I'm happy that I did manage to do that. My mom too. Sorry no pictures of me in my bathing suit...LOL...even if I have, no way me gonna upload them here....Muahahaha!

Well, for me and Darling, that trip last year was our second one. But it was the first for the rest. But it was more like 14 years ago that Darling and I were there and of course, I have forgotten most about Bali. But I could never forget the nostalgic memories of Club Med Nusa Dua in Bali. That was where we stayed when we were there 14 years ago. And guess what...we went back to Club Med Nusa Dua :). My heart stopped beating 2 beats when I saw Club Med Nusa Dua again:)

This is Club Med Nusa Dua in Bali and that is the exact same swimming pool I took Darling for a swim. Of course when I told him that I had taken him for a swim inside this pool, he couldn't remember. All he could do was to smile....Darling was then about 2 years old :) Memang tengah nakal giler! And beside this pool is the Club Med's disco. Hehehe. You get my drift??

This is one of the sceneries at the Temple of the Monkeys. It is overlooking the beautiful ocean.

Watch out...it is a LONG way down! Taken from the top of the Temple of the Monkeys.

Another Temple..Bali is so so famous for its many and many Temples. So much so that we had seen so many temples but cannot remember their names :(. Of course hopeless me cannot remember the Temples' names, but Anis may have a better memory than me. Heh.

This is taken from on top of some name (Geez Louise....again my memory is failing!!). This watzit mountain is of course a volcano...and if I cant think correctly its name is Kintamani??? Huh...I'm not sure if I'm right. I may be wrong. But for the dare devil adventurers...or the die hard mountain climber tourists (I'm discounted from all these die hard games due to my back condition...Phew! TQVM), you can actually climb up to the top of this watzit volcano and enjoy the beautiful sunrise from up there. But I figure since I have been to Diamond Head in Honolulu (the famous volcano crater...its a WOW!), I guess this watzit volcano, i can easily pass laa. Hehe. I asked Anis, June and Darling if they want to climb the mountain, they said they passed. So there.

This is June and Darling posing in front of some beautiful gateway into another Temple. Check out the tattoos on June's chest and Darling's arms. They had those tattoos done in Kuta Beach. Of course laa....the washable ones. Mandi dua kali lenyap terus. But the beach bums convinced them that the tattoos will last for at least a month. Of course sales talks laaa....Mandi dua kali gone!! Anyways it was a good thing that it was gone rather fast because poor June, she had developed some allergies to the paint that they used on her tattoos and upon our return to Shah Alam she had to see our family doctor almost immediately to take some injections and medications. She was lucky that there wasn't any major damage done onto her skin. I said,"Lain kali buat la lagi tattoos".

The four ladies (that is June, Mom, me and Anis) outside our beautiful villa...all ready to leave for home on the late evening flight. But before our flight, sempat lagi we asked our "supir" to send us to some places to shop...including the Hard Rock Cafe on Kuta Beach. And it was because of HRC la, we all got soaked wet wet and wet in the heavy downpour as we ran along Kuta Beach to where the van was parked (like a 20 minutes walk away from HRC). And the worst part was that I was wearing a red bra and when I was soaked (totally soaked macam mandi air laut), it was so so transparent because I was wearing a beige blouse and pants suit. The silly Balinese beach bums were laughing at me..at us...at me??? Huh? Anis, Darling, June and I were running in the rain....our shoes were like all gone!! Lencun macam nak giler. We had to change into dry clothes at the airport :( What an experience as we were leaving Bali in the evening. We saw some Mat Sallehs who were surfing in the sea and I thought, hey...we are just as soaked as them maaann....we may as well be surfing the Balinese seas with them. At least "puas hati kan kalu dah nak lencun macam tu sekali..semuanye gara2 nak membeli LAGIII HRC Tees. Macam tak cukup2 teeshirts HRC that we bought earlier. Padan la muka :("

My super Hero and I :) Cun tak ?? Ummi nye ke si anak nye ke yang cun? LOL. Check out Darling's new Planet Hollywood Bali Tee. Hehe Lawa kan? Ummi nye pilih mesti la lawa gitu.
And check out Darling's brand new shoes that we just bought the day earlier (costed me 540000 Rupiahs) and then the shoes got "lencun" in the rain as we ran out from HRC later in the day. Plus the PH's Tee pun lencun. Ceh!

Inside view of our villa. Nice ah?? This is the living area. They also have a cable TV. Excuse the photographer, June, because she likes to sabotage my pictures.....see my pants....she didn't realise that my pants' leg was not properly pulled down. Haiyaaa...

This is June and Anis posing in front of our private swimming pool. Nice or not?? The water is damn cold....too bad they don't have heated swimming pool, else we would have gone for a swim or at least a dip dip laa (since I don't swim) at nights.

This is Jimbaran Hill Resort's common swimming pool for their guests. Check out their beautiful and unique architectures...its so so Balinese yes? I love Bali :) :) :). We all LOVE Bali :) Anyways, we met so many tourists from diverse nationalities and cultures there at Jimbaran Hill Resort and we managed to hang with some of them at nights at the Resort's KOK Lounge and pool tables. All in all, we had an awesome vacation in Bali. Of course, we didn't miss the famous Jimbaran Bay seafood. We had a feast over lobsters, a few types of fish, calamaris, prawns etc...and we were very lucky to have a table so so near to the waters...and the waves were beating on the white sandy beach, almost came close to our table. Now how more romantic can it get in Bali?? Bali....truly a paradise of its own kind.

Older Men are Romantic-Nots !

2005-12-11T10:28:00.000+08:00

This is a sequel to my previous posting entitled "Polygamy Anyone?". Okay back to the scene at Coffee Bean at Sec 13......the two guys, Mr Y and Mr S had to leave us and so it was me and Z then. And we continued chatting about the polygamy topic that we were so engrossed in with the two guys earlier. Then I asked Z what does it feel like to be married to an older man. Z's third husband is 64 going on to 65 years old and they have been married about slightly over a year now. Her husband's first wife died of cancer not too long ago and they have known each other for quite a while before they courted and got hitched. Z's husband was actually her client! Heh. Anyways, I wanted to know from her (first hand info) what does it feel like to be married to a much older man and how are these older men different than the younger men. Z is 18 years younger than her husband...yes, she is like 47 years old now. She said that she cannot speak about all older men because to each his own and definitely her husband isn't representative of all the old men around. But she said that her husband is very religious, responsible, knows what to do (in the house and outside) without being asked or sought for favors, very hardworking especially in the kitchen (she now never cook alone), very jovial and likes to goof around and crack her up, still open minded, caring....but romantic-NOT!! So she said, at the end of the day, would a woman want a hopelessly romantic husband and having none of those qualities or the other way around. Oh what a choice! Are these the only choices we have these days? Of course not. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Ahaks.

I still remember that Z's husband loves to boil for her some natural herbs (I don't know the names of the herbs but they are traditional herbs for traditional baths) in this huge pot and he would prepare for her this lovely, nice scented (with flowers etc), warm bath that he said is very good for Z. He actually gave her the bath himself :) When I first heard this, I was truly so amazed because I don't have any friends or in-laws who would prepare traditional herbs baths for their lovely wives. And we are talking about a 65 year old man here. And then my perspective about old husband changed a little bit after listening to Z's stories. Of course only the East Coast people would appreciate their bodies and internal beauties more than others (so I've noticed...the Trengganuans and Kelantanese are so into inner and outside beauty, health and long life and they really take good care of themselves. But I'm not saying that others take care of themselves any less, but perhaps due to my strong ties and influence to the East Coast people, I happened to notice more coming from them. Hahaha). I actually asked Z to ask her husband if he could boil for me the traditional herbs and prepare my traditional bath. Lol.

Eighteen years apart is really a big gap yes? I think so, but I don't know what others may think. When Z told me that she was going to marry this man, I was so shocked that I asked her, "Z, are you sure you really want to do this? I mean...isn't he a tad too old for you? Can you communicate with this man...does he even speak the same lingo bla bla bla." I was very worried that she would make another big mistake by marrying a wrong man (like she did in her second marriage). But she said that her heart feels good about this old man and that she was in love with him.

I'm very happy for my friend as she is very happy being married to a much much older man. I guess age doesn't matter if you can connect to each other because after all, a marriage stands strongest on many many aspects. She said, older men are, however, very no nonsense, will speak straight to the point and will never understand all these "flowery language and beating around the bush or drop hints or even reading vibes kinda thing", strict in their own ways, very disciplined, very impatient (Hahahaha!!) and very so romantic-NOT (Hahahaha!!). So there.....

I guess Z is talking more about the 60plus men. So I asked her what about the 50plus men? Are they so alike to the 60plus?? She said...again she cannot make a general comment because this isn't really a representative survey we are talking about. Yep...I would agree. Coming from a fellow academician. Ahaks!! But I guess 50plus or 60plus, they are pretty much alike....the 64 going on to 65...the 54 going on to 55 :) :) :). But I kinda like the 54 going on to 55 thing. The retiring group....wonder what's up on their semi retiring minds aye? Traditional herbs bath too?? Hahahaha ~~~

Polygamy Anyone ??

2005-12-08T18:46:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago (Tuesday), a colleague of mine called asking if we could catch up as we haven't talked in months! Since my "Hell Broke Loose" is finally over, I agreed. And we decided to meet up at Cofee Bean at Giant, near my place in Sec13, Shah Alam. So we arrived around 11-ish am and as we walked into Coffee Bean, then we were pleasantly surprised to bump into another fellow colleague, Mr Y, who was accompanied by an ex-colleague, Mr S. Well, I do not know who Mr S is because apparently when he was teaching at our Faculty, it was yonks ago and therefore, when I joined UiTM in early 2001, Mr S had already long gone. Anyways, the first thing he told me was, "You look so so familiar. Now where did we meet?" I said, "Geez.....it is such a small world huh? Because you definitely look so familiar to me too, but somehow I cannot recall where we met." Anyways, after much introduction, we finally sat down after we made our orders and all.

The three of them were talking like they haven't met in years! Wow I thought...it was supposed to be a hang out with a girlfriend but it turned out to be a foursome :) Anyways, we all spoke the same lingo...we just clicked and connected with each other like as if we had known for years. What more when the two guys mentioned to me that they had graduated from Kalamazoo!! Another "Kampung Melayu" in the good ol' US of A. And I said "Oh wow!! Small world indeed !!" The obvious question came out from my mouth, "What year was that?" Then they both said "1982!!". And I exclaimed, "Oh Wow...kewlness!! Then you MUST know so and so ...and somemore so and so...and somemore so and so...bla bla bla." They were totally blown away and asked "What's your relationship with these people? Of course laa we all know them...until now we are in constant touch with them. Masa Mak N meninggal last year, we were there at their house bla bla bla.." Then I said, "Aye?? How come I didn't see you all...bla bla bla". All in all, I could say that this world is getting much much too small for me. Especially nowadays, I seem to be bumping into so many "coincidences" in my life. It is rather scarry at times. So many links into my past life :)

And the common playground we all share (between me and the two guys) is that we all have this Trengganu linkage together. Hahahaha. Apa lagi weii...slang Ganu pung conquer the table la. Kesihan ke my girlfriend, Z. Because she didn't understand what the hey we were talking about as it sounded like chicken language to her, being the KLite that she is. She kept on asking "Banyaknye cerita you all nih".

Anyways, I want to highlight about Mr S here because me and him had this very very interesting conversation. About polygamy. Yes...Polygamy in marriage. Now Mr S is a polygamist himself (with the approval of his first wife). He is almost 55 years old and is a banker. He said that his first wife is 2 years older than him and about 10 years ago, he met a woman (his second wife now), and they fell in love and in most fairy tale stories, the Prince and the Princess in love would eventually end up in a marriage. To cut the story short, the first wife accidentally knew about the second wife like this. One fine day, Mr S was supposed to date his second wife but something happened that required him to go home (some emergency thingy), and he sorta forgot to inform the second wife that he had to take a raincheck from her on that date he promised. So at home, Mr S was upstairs in his room, his cellphone rang and his first wife picked up the call, and the second wife asked, "En S mana? Dia janji nak keluar dengan I. I tengah menunggu ni." Then the two women chatted for a long time (Yeah ladies....the second wife was totally so bold and daring to even admit that she was having an affair with the other woman's husband!! But I guess, if she wasn't daring and bold like she was, prolly they would not be married even by now). Then the first wife went upstairs to look for her husband and to confront him. Meanwhile Mr S was having cold sweats and fearing the worst and talking to himself, "Mampus la aku...sure perang ni!". Then the first wife asked him, "Just what did you promise that woman? Did you promise to marry her?". Mr S said, "Yes." Then like as if it was a dream or some kind of a fairy tale story or blessings from Allah, the first wife said, "Okay ....if you had promised to marry her, then let us go to her house and discuss with her." Then the marriage took place !!! As easy as that. Oh wow oh wow !! Mama Mia !!

Well, that was 10 years ago. Mr S has kids from both mariages and he shuttles himself between the first wife's and second wife's every week because both wives want to have him over the weekends. I looked in awe at Mr S. And I thought, now what is it about this man sitting next to me that make a few women "tergila2" ke dia? He has a very lovely smile. He doesn't look 54 going on to 55. He has a very nice body built...very tall, prolly almost 6 footer, slim and flat tummy and all...and definitely look very professional...and definitely not BALDING!! Muahahaha. And his little bit of white hair here and there make him look rather distinguished and important and all. So I guess he must be a smooth talker :). And I think he is also a very considerate, humble and caring man. You know why I think of him that way? Because at one time, I wanted to know the time and my sweater's sleeves were way below my wrists and my watch was hidden inside my sweater's sleeve. Then my mobile rang....Darling was calling me to ask about something. Since my other hand was busy holding my cellphone, I had to figure out a way to look at my hidden watch. Then Mr S who was so attentive and so knowing what was in my mind, pulled up my sweater's sleeve so that I could see my watch. And I said, "Wow...now how many men you meet for the first time would be so sensitive to your needs like that?" So I guess he must be a lady's guy!! LOL. No wonder he has so many PYTs who are after him...he said as young as 24, mind you!! And almost as old as one of his kids!!

Anyways, he said, now he is courting a 29 year old woman who is currently separated and waiting for the divorce to go through from her husband. And I asked the obvious question again. "Do your wives know about this other woman?" He said with a smile, "Yeah of course they both know." And I asked again, "So are you serious to marry a third wife and what do your wives have got to say about your noble intention?" He said, "Of course la my first wife said can, but my second wife said cannot. It is always the case, whoever takes the man from the other woman will never grant the permission. But the woman whom her husband has been taken away from her will always say yes because she's used to it already." I was so so can't say anything at all. I was flabbergasted. I was so so amazed at his story. This is not Drama Minggu Ini ye. I looked at Z, and we both were so so like "Geez louise...Its beyond me....I cant think what to say...is there anything at all to say". You know what I mean ladies?

But I managed to ask Mr S why would he need to marry a third wife. I asked him is it because he hasn't found his true love? Or is it because he still feel empty and lonely inside even with two wives? Or is it because he doesn't have enough sex from the two wives? Or is it because he cannot say "No" to the woman who has fallen for him? Or is it because he has so much money to spend on many wives? Or is it because he has too much love to give to so many wives? Or is it a "Man" thing? What? What? Mr S gave it a long think and finally he smiled and said ,"Hmmm....I really can't answer your question. I have no answer. Can I just say that perhaps I want a younger wife now?". Well, his first wife is 57 and his second wife is 46. And the wife to be is only 29. Phew!! Fuyooo!!

So we told him, "dah alang2 pekasam baik la sampai ke lengan baju singlet?? Whatever!" So we said for his last quota, he may as well find a teenager. A cradle snatcher :) He said, "For a man to marry the second time it is actually his biggest hurdle, if he can get passed that, then to marry the third and fourth is a piece of cake." Fuuuyooo.....fanning meself !! I asked him how long has he known his third wife-to-be. He said, "About 1 1/2 years. I find that she is very sincere and she is not after my money. Because over the years I've known her, I have spent very little on her. Like this other young woman who was after me (another 25 year old), I had spent more than a thousand ringgit on her during less than a month I had known her." So I asked why did he spend so much on the other woman and he said that she wanted to go shopping and wanted to buy MP3 la this la that la. Oh I see :) :)

To tell the truth, he has currently so many young women suitors in spite of him going steady with the 29 year old third wife-to-be. I think some wives are simply made in Heaven to grant permissions to their husbands to marry another woman. And I think that some men who have extra marital affairs are bold enough to assume full responsibilities and marry the women they are having the affairs with come what may. These are the men who let the bullshit to walk and they walk the talk :) Muahahaha. But according to Mr S, he said even if his wives do not grant him the permission to remarry, he would still go ahead with his intention anyways. And his wives know that very well.So they may as well come to terms with it and make everyone happy, so he said.

So I figure when he marries the third one and prolly the fourth one in a few years down the road, that means he would only get to see each wife once a month. It is like saying, "Okay Hon...I'll see you next month ye. Anything just call or sms me okay?" Ahaaakksss :) :) :) I must admit that some life is just simply too good for some people.

I usually lurve to give my 2 cents on any topic that I write in my blog. But I figure I'd better be an independent writer this time...I'm not taking any sides here..therefore, no 2 cents from me this time. This is my prerogative. Hehehehe.

But hey...anyone who wants to give me your 2 cents, please....by all means, yes! Give it to me baby :) :) yeah, baby, yeah....Mojo U !!

Teenagers of the Millennium... What a Brat !!

2005-12-08T13:32:00.000+08:00

We don't know what it is about the teenagers of this era that make them into such brats. Interestingly this morning my sister, Aya and me, were talking about the kids....OUR kiddos!! As it is, in my family, only us who are having teens of the millennium because my brother, Jimi, and my other sister, Ida, have younger ones and therefore will not face what we are facing.

Aya was rattling away on the phone complaining so much about her kids. She said, "you know eversince the shool holiday started, they have been on that stupid machine, ie the infamous PS2, and they only take very short breaks, the shorter the better, for meals and prayers. They refused to assume responsibilities in this house. I gave them house chores, they don't want to do. They pretend that I'm not in this house...bla bla bla...." And she went on and on and on. At the end of each complaint, I would say , "well....what to do...teens nowadays are typical like that." Then she snubbed at me, "Dont say teens nowadays are typical like that. I refused to accept that stupid answer all the time....what do you mean teens of nowadays? What are teens of nowadays??" Okay here we go...please define "what are teens of nowadays??" Anyone can tell us? Because we are like very confused when other parents like to say..."well....thats what teens nowadays are". You mean like they are spoilt rotten BRATS!! And DRATS!!

We are saying that kids nowadays are so pampered, so provided for with whatever they want...and then they get away with almost whatever they do. What happen to the qualities that we had when we were teens? We were there before. Aya and I were going back into time to recall what we had to do when we were teens. Of course our mother was so so strict (being an ex teacher) that she would spank us real hard if she saw a red mark on our report cards. So much so that if we had fallen short just a little bit of her expectation, we would have to sneak into our parents' room after Subuh (just when Mom was in the kitchen preparing for our breakfast) and would get our father to sign our report cards (that would be the best time of the day to catch him actually...especially when he was half awake and all...LOL). Our mother also refused us to get into the kitchen to help her with cooking (now you know why I suck bigtime in cooking...but not to the extent that you would get diarhea if you eat my cooking laa) because she wanted us to concentrate fulltime in our studies. But we did our own washing of school shoes (Darling does not wash school shoes because he wears fancy adidas and nikes to school...wonder why they don't make kids wear the white Bata shoes to school anymore. We had to wear the stupid looking Bata shoes then). But I tell you...we still had to take the garbage out, watered the plants, hang the laundry, picked up the laundry, folded the clothes and kept then neat in the closets, cleaned our own rooms, helped Mom to clean the house and babysitted June (yup the little brat).

In spite of our school achievements and all, we still had to do many house chores. We were not blessed with any of those artsy fartsy games like the computers, PS2, Gameboys (well, they were non-existent then), but still we had some games of our era too. Like I don't know....I can't recall now. See? If I had played them I would remember. But I dont' recall any fancy artsy fartsy game that our parents had given us with to play with. That means we had none. Of course, our lifestyle back then wasn't easy too. My Mom had to resign from her teaching job just so to raise 5 kids (most of the time without any maid). But we were raised under very close supervision and very strict rules. I remember that I wasn't allowed to go to parties until I had sat for my MCE (those days hahaha). Even then my parents had to drive me to the house where the party was at. No such thing as hanging out with the gang or whatever. We were not even allowed to mix with the neighborhood kids for fear of bad influence. We were not allowed to go to the movies without our parents. Therefore, I cannot remember if I had been to the movies before I was 15!! But luckily in Convent we had these nice movies being shown once in a while in the school hall and that would be my kinda "funtime" with my classmates. How pathetic :)

Aya was saying "See, how much different we were compare to our kids nowadays? And yet they are so blessed with all the artsy fartsy things in life. Each of the boys have their very own PS2 lagiii!!". I also realise that kids nowadays will show their anger to their parents...not just our kids...but my nieces and nephews too. Now, tell me, have time evolved so much that kids now are not anywhere near to what kids were before during my time? I wonder if parenting has to do with it as well. When we were kids, each time our Mom raised her voice, we would all run up to our rooms, locked up the door and sit down so quietly so much so that we could hear our own stomachs growlling! Tak berani nak tengok muka Mak pun masa dia marah, no such thing as looking into her eyes...gue caya luuu!!! But kids nowadays, you cuba la marah or tegur dia orang...they, too, will have their 2 cents to say. And they want to say their opinion and thoughts. Although we encourage them to speak up what's on their minds, but sometimes "gerammm" je kita orang. Sabar je laaa !! So I think kids now are wayy too smart for their own good!! Don't you think?

Anyways Aya (feeling very blue because of PMS), woke up this morning to find her kitchen all topsy turvy. The kids had been cooking last nite and had left all the mess for her to clean up this morning. Blood pressure pun naik laaa...dah la having PMS and all. I can imagine. Good thing I never experience all these PMSes...sigh. And the boys since Subuh dah hooked up masing2 in their rooms with the stupid machines laaa...And the poor two Bengals (cats), Orion and Ruby were crying out loud for breakfast and the boys were too "deaf" to hear to the cats' cries. PS2 punya "trance". Then Aya pulled out the plugs and confiscated both PS2 machines and locked them up in her room. Habih cerita!! Muahahahaha!!! And the boys were sulking and sulking and sulking.....throwing tantrums at their mother saying that it is unfair...yang si kecik tu always kata why is life so unfair...yea right like DUH~~~ Aya wasn't listening to any of their whinings. She said the house chores she wanted the boys to do are so dang simple like feeding the Bengals, throw the garbage, clean up the mess in the kitchen after they cooked, to clean up the mess in their rooms, and water the plants. She said, "it is not like I'm asking them to go to tap the rubber trees, to go and get some firewoods, to go to the well to get some water, to go to the river to wash the clothes or even to the padi fields to plant padi!!" Muahahahaha. My sister can be quite funny at times. What a thought!! I asked her, "what exactly did you ask the boys to do? Paint the house? Repair the rooftop?" Hahaha. I think I'm a more lenient mother than my sister. When it comes to parenting, I'm a bit of a "hopeless"...I always feel "kesihan ke anak2". Macam tu.

Anyways I suggested to Aya to send the boys to kampung. It is a good time for them to go back to kampung as well because our parents are doing replanting of some rubber trees at the "kebuns" belonging to the two boys and Darling. And the boys can help out or the very least watch the replanting work being done. Aya called Mom yesterday and asked if she could send the boys home. But Mom wasn't agreeable. She said, "No need laaa....Mak don't want the boys to go into the kebun because I don't want them to be bitten by some creatures like the snakes or mozzies or the whatevers!! They cannot be bitten because they have to go to school. But if you all want to go into the kebuns then you all can go laaa (referring to us the siblings)". Aya said, "Kau percaya tak? Mak cakap...budak2 tak boleh masuk kebun nanti kena patuk ular la apa laa...tapi kalu KITA nak masuk kebun kena patuk ular tak apa laaa....." Muahahahaha. DUH DUH DUH~~~~~~~

Okay talking about grandparenting is another issue or story ALTOGETHER !!! I tell you how many times have I not agreed with my parents about "parenting" my own child. They are always SO SO SO protective about their grandkids!! Huh!!! I don't know what it is about grandparents. Why are they so protective and defensive of their grandkids but they were very strict to their own kids (my father was not strict at all, only mom was). Why the double standard? Any grandparents in da house?? Okay, I think I would need to be a grandma first to emphatize or to "feel" what they feel. Hehehe. Perhaps when I'll be a grandma in the future, I may turn out worse than my parents aye? Okay, I can't deny that thought :)

You see why wouldn't the kids become brats? When the Mommy says "No", the Daddy says "Yes", when the Mommy says "Yes", the Daddy says "No". Belum lagi grandparents' punya 2cents ye!! Alahaii...sigh. I always tell Darling, "Darling, one of these days Mommy is going to die of heart attack or high blood pressure!". Each time he goes out to jam at the studio at SS15 in SJ with his band boys, I would get so worried waiting for him at home. It does give me some comfort that his uncle sometimes would monitor his own kid and Darling as well in the jamming. Darling said that his band has recorded 3 original songs that they have written and he said they sound pretty good. Well, I haven't heard the compositions yet. But from what I heard from my nephews and nieces, the kind of music Darling and his band plays are kinda kewl and very "teenaged" style. Whatever. But I still have this "heart attacks" :( :(

Well....who says that raising a teenager is gonna be easy. Can't they just grow up twice faster during their teenaged years than their pre-teenaged years?? That way, we would have much much lesser heart attacks and high blood pressures....macam Aya kata, kita tau2 budak2 dah 20+ tahun...like they just breezed through very very fast during those years between 14-20 years old. Then they get to be 21 years old and by then we parents can be rest assured that they are more matured and wiser and would know how to take care of themselves better. And we would be less worried. How we all wish right?

I know not many in da house have teenaged kids yet because mostly are young couples with young kids. But wait for your time to experience raising teenagers. By then, you guys would prolly have more "warfares" to fight with your kids. Now we only have internet, Play Station 2 games, MTVs, and fancy handphones (just about all the teens love to hang around with). Maybe in the future, we will have far worse "teenagers issues" to deal with. Scarry thoughts?? Hehehe...well, part and parcel of parenting. It is only call parenting. Such a small and easy word. The responsibilities that come with the word...it's like "Ya Allah ya Tuhan ku!!!"

Me wishing all with kids "Happy Parenting" :) :) :) When they are young, they all are so cute...when they are in their teens, the "warfare" begins. Ahaaaaks !

A Very Special Dedication :)

2005-12-07T02:28:00.000+08:00

TRULY

Girl, tell me only this
That I have your heart
For always
And you want me by your side
Whispering the words I'll always love you

And forever
I will be your lover
And I know if you really care
I will always be there

Now I need to tell you this
There's no other love
Like your love
And I as long as I live
I'll give you all the joy my heart and soul can give
Let me hold you
I need to have you near me
And I feel with you in my arms
This love will last forever

Cuz I'm truly
Truly in love with you girl
I'm truly
Head over heels with your love
I need you
And with your love I'm free
And truly
You know you're all that in me

Song "TRULY" by Lionel Ritchie

Song dedicated specially to Nonamaria by The Tramp

A Greenhorn High on Ice Cream Caught in the Act !!!

2005-12-06T19:17:00.000+08:00

You wouldn't believe this story. Yesterday evening, before Maghrib, my sister, Aya and her eldest son came home and saw a man coming out of their front gate and pulling along with him her son's bike. She parked her car and quickly got out and asked the man what he was doing. The man said that he had already asked for permission from Aya's youngest son (who was inside the house at that moment) to borrow his bike for a while. Then Aya was very perplexed with his answer, smelled something amiss in his story and as she began to ask him more questions, the man hopped onto the bike and was peddling away with Aya's youngest son's bike! Then she gave a small chase and stopped the man from peddling and then she shouted to the man and said that she would scream to the neighbors if he didn't get down and give back the bike. After so much fuss (plus she also wanted to get the neighbors to come and help), the man got very frightened and started to scoot off. The funny thing about this man was that he was so cool about it, he didn't seem frightened that Aya might yell out to the neighbors. As a matter of fact he was eating ice cream all the time when defending his case with Aya. There my sister was shouting at him frantically and he was eating ice cream! Can you imagine that? She suspected that the man is Indon who prolly has been living here for quite sometime as his native slang has more or less watered down so much so that it was rather difficult to figure out if he was local or import. But the story is always the same...they are all feathers of the same bird.

Anyways the man got off from the bike and walked away so fast before my sister could even do more than that. Imagine a stranger walked into a closed front gate at your porch (not locked though), in the middle of the broad daylight, where they are so many people outside of their houses either watering their plants, walking their dogs ( a common sight at USJ3), sitting in their garden to enjoy the polluted air of Subang Jaya and kids playing and biking everywhere on the sides of the road and many more familiar sights. So I figure he must be high on something to dare him to do such a thing. Yea...high on the ice cream !! Now the bike sits inside the house. I guess people like them are so desperate nowadays that anything is game for them to steal...even some stupid slippers or some tools, or some DIY stuff that they would take. The bike is no Le Run, but still, it is a bike that cost a few hundred bucks and I'm sure would come in handy to these people. Ironically USJ3 is always the target for small time muggers These are the muggers in the making you know....the "budak baru nak belajar kinda thing". If they are semi pros, I'm sure they would play at areas like USJ4 and USJ6. And if they are pros, then their big playgrounds would be like USJ2 (the artsy fartsy bungalows), SS19 and the like in Subang Jaya. So I told Aya, these small flies, although greenhorns in muggings, but they are prolly just as dangerous. So I told her to be extra careful and to always remind the boys to lock up the gate especially when they are inside the house as their safety comes first.

I will always recall my nitemares when I used to live there in USJ3 a very long time ago. It was the time of heavy thefts and we would hear scarry stories almost everyday that this house been mugged, that house been broken into and the owners were injured bla bla bla. There was one particular time where the thefts were so so rampant in my area that I had to go and stay at a gurlfrens's apartment in Goodyear Court until the situation was more or less under control. I had sleepless nites especially when there was no real man in my house. And what was I suppose to do if some scarry looking strangers in masks come down from my rooftop? The thought was simply too much for me to deal with...the implication could endanger Darling's life and mine. It was unthinkable. No wonder it is not in Darling's future plan to return to our house in USJ :). Apartment living is still by far safer especially for people like us (the weaklings) Muahahaha!

I suggested to Aya that the boys must stay over at our apartment next week where June can babysit the three boys together (Darling and Aya's 2 boys) while we are away in Jakarta. Else Aya will not enjoy her shoppings....AND her nasi padang.....AND her spas. Hahahaha.

Hell Broke Loose Is Finally Over ! Phew !

2005-12-04T12:06:00.000+08:00

I have been offline eversince Hari Raya and I finally went to CK's blog to catch up with all the glamorous happenings in her life among beloved friends. And oh WOW !! Oh boy, did I miss a hell lot of exciting and funtimes with you guys. I have yet to bloghop to others like KC's, Noreez', MM's and Rose's...and ...and...and Sigh. Memikirkan nye pun I dah letih. But I think CK's covered pretty much all the happenings in November. Amboi...sakan nye dia dok seronok dengan gang...sebab tu la lening dok rok manjang wei ! Hehe. I'm so happy for you and the rest of the pals who had shared many good times together. As for me, this November was a month of Hell Broke Loose. Lol.

The UiTM's final exams ended on November 28 (my paper just HAD to be the last in the agenda laa). Anyways, I was hibernating in my room all day and almost all nite trying to finish marking 3 bundles of exam papers that my students had sat on the 28th. Of course I had somemore bundles that had come in as early as November 10. Darling, from time to time, asked me if I would ever finish marking. Duh! Due to my chronic backpain problems, I couldn't mark consistently as I needed to take some good breaks after each session of marking. Hence, I took longer than I should. Anyways, Hell Broke Loose ended for me yesterday around 3pm when I signed my name in the last answer script. Yayyy ! I'm so exhausted (more of mentally because it is really no joke trying to digest every answer that was written in the script plus trying to squint my eyes with small small handwritings which is usually the case) that I cannot even shout YAYY with all the expected excitement.

I guess Darling is the happiest person to know that I'm out of my hibernation. And Blackie is the saddest one in the house. Because he would love to sit and sleep on the answer scripts to accompany me with my marking. At times I had to move his ass from the answer scripts and then he would stand up and walk to another bundle and continue sleeping on it as well. Accompanying me marking was also my faithful CDs that never stopped playing me some good music. I guess I must have memorised most of the chorus already. June always complain that I have played the same CD wayy wayy too many times and she was going to puke. My mediterranean flavored instrumental music never fail to give me all the inspirations that I need.

After finishing marking, the first person I had to visit was my doctor :(. Anyways after some dosage of my painkillers, I'm almost almost good as new. Alhamdullillah :). Today is just one of those lazy days that I always enjoy...no fuss...no frills on a Sunday. Now I can be a couch potato. Already last week, I had to miss all my fave TV programmes like my 3 CSIs, Desperate Housewives, Medical Investigation, Dr House, The Practice, and Jamie Oliver (yes yes). Now, I can have my life back. Hoo hoo.

But I'm so looking forward to winging away to Jakarta on the 12th with my fourth sister, Aya. Just us two ladies heh. So it will be just shopping and spas. But I guess we will not be shopping till we drop because I personally am NOT the "shopping till I drop kinda" (anyone close to me would know that). My kinda holiday would be like to the Keys in Florida (fuyo! been there done it already but it was wayy too long ago)...or Mauritius (another fuyo)...or the Maldivian islands (been there done it). My niece told me that Koh Samui is also kewl, but I've never been there yet. I know (I read from a travel mag) that in Koh Pagan they have this moonlight beach party every time they have a full moon. My niece said that it is really fun, nice, happening and wow so sexy. Hah. I love to be a bummer or a loafer on the white sandy beaches with my music playing and an exciting book. I can never appreciate any other views in this world MORE than the sunrise and the sunsets at the horizon yonders of the sea. One of the most beautiful sunsets that I've ever seen is in Honolulu and recently the South African sunrise. Sigh...simply breathtaking....makes my heart stop and as I watch those heavenly views, I will think of "kebesaran Allah SWT". My mom always say "Bila kita tengok laut ni kita mesti ingat kepada kebesaran Allah!". Yes....I guess that is why I always love the sea (but me can't swim boo hoo). Ironically I'm recalling a strange incident where I met an Indian man (I think it was in Club Med in Cherating a long long time ago). He said "If you can avoid the sea or a pool of water I think you should". Then I asked him why (the obvious question). He said that I could drown myself. Now his answer was very strange to me (I didn't even know the man...he just came up to me). And then I asked him how did he know and he answered "your legs". So I thought that he was just trying to make small talks with me...but then he walked away. Hahaha. Silly thing to even think about it. But till now, I've yet to learn to swim.

Anyways, Jakarta will simply be a bit of shopping and nasi padang and spas. That is IT. I told a friend that we are going to Jakarta to shop for baju sembahyang. Then he said "What's WRONG with you? Don't they have baju sembahyang at Mesjid India?". Of course they have laa....even the PKNS Shah Alam is never short of baju sembahyang. I guess I can say "saja je nak beli baju sembahyang in Jakarta tak boleh ke??" Already Rozie dah kirim like 4 pasang baju sembahyang. Hehehe. I wonder if Rose and CK pun nak. Ehh...talking about baju sembahyang, the ones that Rose and CK gave to me and my mom when we were off to Umrah last year, is absolutely gorgeous. TQVM TQVM (in case if I didn't thank you babes enough). Rozie is so wanting the same kind and we went to PKNS looking for the exact one but too bad we couldn't find it anymore. The baju sembahyang that was given by Rose and CK is really cooling, very nice, just the right length (tak berjuntai berjela2 masa tawaf and saie) and it is not huge berterbangan merata2 you know what I mean? Me being the petite kinda right? Heh. Anyways, they do not sell the same thing here anymore. And because if its scarcity, I went back for Raya that day I took Mom's baju sembahyang from her (the one that CK and Rose gave), saying that since she has so so so many pairs, apalah salahnye kalu I ambik yang CK and Rose kasi dia tu kan *wink wink*. She said "OK". Then I told Rozie about it and she said "Oh No...you took from her? Please find me the same one in Jakarta". InsyaAllah if ada "rezeki" Rozie, we will find some pairs for her. I've never been to Jakarta so I cannot imagine where we can go to "lepak". We were forewarned by many friends to be extra careful there. So, wondering if we could take a bodyguard with us . Muahahaha ! No...let me rephrase that. Wonder if I can bring a "babysitter" with us. Hah!

Now that my madness is all over, I guess I've to fulfill my promise to Darling. I had promised to take him shopping for a white shirt (he wants ala Armani la pulak...now malas nye nak ke KLCC. How I dread going to KL downtown) and a matching tie with his brand new all black two-piece suit that was only ready a few days ago. He has this International Nite that his school is organising at a club in Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel. And it blardy costed me RM120 for his tix to attend the gala. I figured it is such an expensive affair, even my students' graduation dinner nites do not cost more than RM60 per pax. I asked him why is it so expensive? He said it is because the school has some glamorous super star artistes that nite including Reshmonu. Wah....school events also like that one ah?? So glamorous. glitzy, sparkling and all-so-happening. June asked if she could tag along. Of course Darling said "eowww...get out!" And now June is so convinced that Darling is taking a date with him that nite. Okay...now I'm finding this a little bit too hard to absorb. A date? Who? My 16 year old son is taking a date to some International Nite dinner? No wayyyy !!! Get out !!! Anyways...I guess that is why sometimes I embrace to this philosophy "What you DON'T know will not hurt". So there. I choose NOT to know.....Ish Ish. Am I a good mother or not? I don't know...I guess I'm not ready for this "growing up wayy too soon kinda thingy ya know". But Darling is all prep up....I'm sure he will look drop dead gorgeous :) :).

Actually I had made a deal with Darling last year in Bali. I gave him some spending money if he wanted to shop in Bali. But he couldn't find anything that he fancied (well...if it was SG then I'm sure he has plenty to buy...nasib baik la Bali....ain't his style of barang2). Then he gave me back the Rupiahs and made a deal with me. He said that since he wasn't spending anything there, then I must buy him a pair of Adidas boots each time they come out with a new model or fashion. So I agreed. Now I owe him one Adidas boots from the Bali trip. Then this year when we were in South Africa, again he made the same deal with me (again he couldn't find anything fancy to buy there). That means now I owe him two pairs of yet-to-be-launched Adidas boots. Anyways I thought to myself, even if I didn't make the two deals with him, I would still lose out at the end of the day because he would make me buy him a new pair of Adidas boots each time they launched a new model. I think Becks has this new artsy fancy boots (that look so futuristic and all which I think is really kewl) and he wants them. I have to keep my part of the bargain now. Eooww. I think Darling has far many more pairs of shoes than me. I wonder why do people like to have many pairs of shoes. I could never figure it out. I know CK and Anis simply lurve shoes....one of their weaknesses is for shoes. Please tell me why. Because I'm so faithful to the few pairs that give me so much comfort. Of course all my stillettoes are long gone. I can never wear one anymore. Boo hoo...

Hari Raya Aidil Fitri Celebration

2005-12-03T20:13:00.000+08:00

Well, what can I say about our Hari Raya Aidil Fitri celebration? Alright, to tell the truth, it was the same old routine year in and year out. I wasn't really keen to write about Hari Raya, but since CK has been asking "Update Hari Raya mana weii???"...okay....I'm not being spared here :)

Now, let me see....this was probably my 20th Raya celebration (Hari Raya Aidil Adha being included) being on my own (meaning single me), without a better half. So, that was why I said...it was the same old routine year in and year out. I have lost that special feeling of celebrating Hari Raya a long time ago. It has been too long that I cannot remember when it was that I had lost that special feeling of Hari Raya (like that special feeling of X'Mas you know hehehe). To me, Hari Raya is just another day...nothing overly special about it....nothing overly fancy about it. It is just a day where we would have more food on the table than any other day. But since I'm not big on foodstuff, so I can't really see that there are more food than on the usual days.

This Hari Raya was also another one of those Rayas where Darling had celebrated it with his Dad. And as always my Mom would be complaining non stop why Darling had to celebrate it with his Dad as to her it seemed like Darling celebrates Hari Raya Aidil Fitri with his Dad every year. Come to think about it she may be right. But it is just that I could not bother to make an issue about it with his Dad, especially when Darling is the one who would always make the decision (although his Dad has more say in this one...that is the usual case). Anyways, during this Raya, I had intended to sleep and sleep and sleep at my kampung without being disturbed by anyone. So I thought :(

During the Ramadhan, I had a lack of sleep, was feeling very lethargic, very exhausted (both mentally and physically) because I felt that this semester was a really short one for me. I had to carry so much more responsibilities aside from lecturing at my Faculty. And for some reasons, we had so so so many events and activities that we had to carry out in this semester alone and the bad news was that, I had to sit on almost all of the organising committees of the various events in the Faculty. Then during the Ramadhan, I was extremely busy giving tests and completing the syllabus with my students. So, Ramadhan breezed through so swiftly that before I could even realize it, it was already the last week of the Fasting month. And towards the last few days before the big day came, I was busy running errands. All of a sudden I had realized that I didn't do this, I didn't do that..bla bla..you know the feeling right? Everyone goes through this Raya madness every year. Now why is it do we only remember to do this and that at the last minute every year? It is a common panic yes? I had to pick up the Raya cookies from Rose , from Aunty Kiah, from Anis..and from whoever else. Every year, I would make it a point to order some Raya cookies for my ex, my ex in-laws, my close friends, my parents and of course for Darling. I'm not too big on Raya cookies either. So what am I big on? Hmmm......good question. Nothing actually ! :Duh

Then I had to deliver the Raya cookies to the people whom I've ordered for. Now this is the tricky part because I usually would end up with having "no time". How I wish that I could have a driver to run all these errands for me. Perhaps in the near future heh. And my parents and siblings kept on asking me when were we planning to go back to kampung. I would always say like 2 days before Raya (a standard yearly answer), but in reality, I would arrive at kampung on the evening of Raya's eve (or slightly earlier in terms of hours). Don't know why I always do that. It is always because I had not enough time :(. Anyways, I couldn't go back to kampung before I had visited arwah Che's grave...and so, I visited her grave like a couple of days before Raya I think. Plus the fact that I had to make sure Darling is all packed nicely to leave for Trengganu and they only left on Monday before Raya. So much for all my excuses you may say.

Me and June arrived at kampung on the eve of Raya. As usual, the standing instruction is that I'm the Bibik doing all the house cleaning. And my fourth sister and sister-in-law are the Bibiks in the kitchen. And my third sister is the "drama queen" as always :). And June would be the "hopeless spoilt brat" who could do nothing at all. So we have two Queens sitting on the thrones in the family. Things were very busy in the kitchen. Thank God I wasn't in that Committee. LOL.

On the morning of Hari Raya, everyone was busy getting ready to go to the mosque. Then the yearly routine began :(. We were always very selective on the visits to do on Hari Raya. Not that me and my siblings are so not into the Raya mood, but we all "malas nak berjalan...malas nak bawak kereta (that is why I need a driver so desperately)......letih makan...letih menjawab soalan...letih berborak that kinda thing you know...semuanye so very laa the letih one!". But we make it a point to visit the people whom we need to go and salam beraya and minta ampun dan kemaafan and all that. So on the first day of Raya, the "compulsory houses" to go were only like 4 houses. Then on the second Raya, the "compulsory houses" were only like 2 houses, at the most 3!. For me, that was IT...no more! Yea...teruk me aye?

My idea to sleep and sleep (trying to catch up on the sleep that I lost during Ramadhan) wasn't really happening after all. And I thought that I could run away from my "busy life in KL" in the nice peaceful environment of my small kampung. We had so many guests this year who came to our house and the fact that my brother and his family, and my sister and her family decided to leave for KL almost immediately, I was so frantic because the kitchen committee had to leave !! Oh no !! So now, you could guess it correctly, that I had to double up on my responsibilities....not only was I in the house cleaning committee, but now I was also UPGRADED to the kitchen committee (and its not even a committee....the committee I meant here is that you are looking at its solo member in the committee :D!!). Bwaaaassssssss !!!

Anyways when you are having a fairly good time, you don't realize where the time had gone to. It just vanished in the thin air. Soon we knew that it was time to return to the hustle and bustle life in Shah Alam. My mom was rushing us to go back for she always fear the traffic congestion and does not want us to get stuck in it. But my big problem is that, I would always find it rather hard to allocate my time to go back to kampung regularly. But when I'm there, I would have so much difficulty to get myself together to come back to Shah Alam. Hmmm....the peace and tranquility I guess. Heh.

And I couldn't really enjoy Raya after I got back to Shah Alam either because our final exams started on November 10 and ended on November 28. So my "regular life" began :(....got drowned in my busy schedule with invigilations and markings. Well...so much so for Hari Raya celebration. I had some open house invites, most of which I turned down...like I said...Im not a biggie in open houses also....WHAT's WRONG WITH ME AYE????? Go on, gimme a smack on my cheek!!

All in all, our Hari Raya celebration this year was just atypical of the previous years'. And there wasn't really any extra special or more meaningful event that had happened. I can say that our Hari Raya celebration last year was a better celebrated one as we took off to Jimbaran Hill in Bali for a week's vacation on the 3rd day of Raya. Now that was a kewl Raya :) :). Maybe next year, I should also plan for a vacation on the 3rd day of Raya aye? And better make it a yearly affair. Ahhaaaakkks !!!

My ONLY regret this Syawal......I didn't do Puasa 6 (I usually do). I guess it is because I was so engrossed with work at school and my mind has been kept extremely, extremely busy and so occupied...and my days are so so long and my nites are so so short (shorter than the usual...insufficient of sleep and all). Hehehehe....

I hope that all my buddies out there had celebrated their Raya in a more fashionable way than us. I'm sure CK, F & Y, KC&S, Rose&Family, MobileMom&Family, and galfrens like Noreez and da gang had a more kick ass celebration :). Yup, I hope so you guys did :) :)

I've been busy eversince and so I haven't had the opportunity to visit any of your blogs yet. But I will very soon now that I'll be a tad bit freer next week and I'll read all about your excitements then !

To The One And Only - MY ENDLESS LOVE

2005-12-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

My Love...
There's only you in my life
The only thing that's right

My LAST Love....
You're every breath that I take
You're every step I make

And I....I want to share
All my love with you
No one else will do
And your eyes
They tell me how much you care
Oh yes...you will always be
My endless love

Two hearts....two hearts that beat as one
Our lives has just begun
Forever.....I hold you close in my heart
I can't resist your charm
And I.....I'll be a fool for you
I'm sure... you know I don't mind
Cus you...you mean the world to me
Ohh...I know...I found in you
My endless Love

Ohh...And I...I'll be that fool for you
I'm sure... you know I don't mind
And yes...you'll be the only one
Cuz no one can't deny
This love I have inside
And I'll give it all to you
My Love
My Love
My Endless Love

(By Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross)

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

2005-11-02T06:22:00.000+08:00

I would like to wish all my beloved Muslim friends and my Muslim readers "SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI". Mohon ampun dan maaf zahir dan batin.

I hope that all of us will have a great Hari Raya with our loved ones and may this year's Hari Raya Aidil Fitri be a better and more joyous celebration than the last one. Don't forget to capture those special moments with your loved ones during this auspicious and memorable occasion and post the funtimes and pix in your blogs for us to share with you. I will try to do the same. Actually my son has taken his digital camera with him to Trengganu where he is celebrating with his Dad. And so, I may not have any "Kodak moments". Hehe.

I pray that Allah SWT will keep us safe on the roads. And we will catch up with each sooner than we think!

Once again, Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri dan mohon maaf zahir dan batin to all...especially to our beloved Lembing cronies...CK,F&Y, Rose and family, KC&S, MM&J, and girlfriends Noreez, Nurul, Sheryl, and others whom I've yet to meet personally.

Taraaa...

NN, June and Darling

An Untimely Death Is Far More Unbearable

2005-11-01T16:18:00.000+08:00

When you live in a Malay community like Shah Alam, especially during Hari Raya festivities (like Hari Raya Aidil Fitri and Hari Raya Aidil Adha), you have no idea how maddening the congestion is at the shopping complexes! June and I were shopping at PKNS on late Friday afternoon to get "baju melayu" for my two nephews (because my sis refused to buy baju melayu for her two sons as she thinks it is a waste because her kids don't really wear them often!) and to get baju kurung and kebaya for June. As soon as we arrived at the complex, I had this migrain attack :(. It is always the case for me whenever Im at some congested area, especially in a closed area. The stuffiness, lack of air simply is too much for me to handle. I knew that I would be getting my migrain attack but I had to go through it. We had to weave through the thousands of people just to look for two miserable baju melayus. But the bazaar Hari Raya at PKNS this year is pretty much appealing and they offer many nice, trendy, and good quality wearing apparel, including robes and scarves. Not bad at all.

Around 6pm while we were checking out some Thai silk baju kurung for June, I got a call from my niece, informing me that a cousin's husband had just passed away :(. We were supposed to break our Fast at my sis-in-law's place that nite and when I heard the news, I thought it would be better if we just cancelled it and make it another day. But since my sis-in-law had already cooked she insisted that we broke our Fast at her place. When we arrived for "berbuka" my sis-in-law was already at our cousin's place, visiting and trying to help out with all the necessary arrangements. I told my niece that I actually had some errands to run that nite and as soon as I had finished I would go and visit.

As it turned out, when I had finished running some of my errands, it was already past 10pm and when I reached home, I called Rose to inform her that I couldnt go over to her house to pick up the cookies that I had ordered from her. Obviously my migrain was too much for me to handle, I was feeling nauseaus and I couldnt drive any further to run some more errands. I couldnt even visit the Allahyarham :(. I came home and popped in a couple of caffox and I messaged my ex husband telling him that I simply couldnt go visiting.

I felt better in the morning and only then I went visiting. They were bathing Allahyarham and I met many of my ex colleagues who were also colleagues of our cousin. The air was full of sadness, pain and tears. What pains me so much was to see how the youngest son, Shamil, cried out loud non-stop and hugging his mother, his aunty and grandmother. Everyone just had to console him. My tears immediately fell like rain at the sight. To lose a father at such a tender age is unbearable.I cant believe what had happened. Life and death are in God's hands. What happened was.....he had gone outstation and had only returned home at 2am on the wee hours of Friday morning from Kota Bharu. He was greeted by our cousin and they chatted and joked. Then they thought they might as well have their "sahur" before they went to sleep. And so they did. Before he went to sleep, he complained to his wife that he had some difficulties in breathing...but they thought it was due to the stress and the exhaustion from the long trip. He slept soundly throughout the nite. Our cousin woke up the next morning to go to work and saw him sleeping and snoring and he looked really exhausted. And so she decided not to wake him up. She tried calling him several times during the day but she couldnt reach him on the cellphone. Thinking that he may be out because he did say before he went to bed that nite that he wanted to get his car serviced. So she thought that he was outside servicing his car. She came home before 6pm and found his car outside the compound of their house at exactly where he had left it off the nite before and a thought had crossed her mind "eh...tak hantar ke kereta servis...setidak2nye pergi sembahyang jumaat." She went inside the house and asked Shamil where his father was. The son said, "Papa tidor". She said, "kenapa Shamil tak bangunkan Papa?". Shamil replied, "Kesian Papa Ma...dia nampak letih sangat" (Coming from a 10year old boy). Apparently their son had walked in and out of the parents' room many times in the day and each time saw his father sleeping. And so she went upstairs to check up on him and found him stone cold. Her whole world had crumbled down on her.

She didnt know what to do and she called my sis-in-law who had gone over and called the two doctors who are neighbors of my sis-in-law. Unfortunately neither of the two doctors was at home at that time. Finally one doctor came and announced that he had died earlier in the afternoon, perhaps around mid-day. I could only guess that it was a silent heart attack. I also read in the newspapers recently that heart attack is now the number 1 killer in Malaysia, followed by cancer.

I was at the "tahlil" last nite and we were sitting at the gazebo chit chatting with my in laws and I realized that they have one of the most beautiful views in this gated community! So lucky of them to have a house situated at one of the highest grounds in this area and we could see the famous Shah Alam blue mosque, part of our golf club and golf course and some of the beautiful bungalows below. And it was so so breezy! They have two high gazebos of which one gazebo was inside a pool of fish having a waterfall as a background! Fancy indeed....atypical of Balinese concept. They also have 10 lovely and FAT cats at the backyard and imagine those cats have their own huge house. Yes....the cats' house is so so huge. Made of wood and so typical of ala kampung. Like my bro-in-law had said.."even the cats' house is a huge bungalow...they have everything...only short of airconds!!". Very true...I would echo him.

While chatting at the gazebo, i said.."I think I can love it here..its so beautiful and serene and the huge open space make it so quiet and so windy...the tranquility gives anyone so much peace of the mind". Then one of us said "Yes....it is indeed. In fact the reason why arwah had built these gazebos was to have family gatherings during Raya because the view up here is quite amazing". Everyone was quiet after that. The family had just moved into that house (less than a year) and unfortunately the arwah didnt live long enough to make it happen. My sis-in-law said to me, "What a pity. They have such a big house and now it will be empty." Our cousin only has two sons, and the eldest one is leaving to study overseas soon. Yes...it is a real pity :(

My thoughts are....we dont know when we will be gone forever. We may be gone just like that...a split of a second, with no warning. Or we may leave "knowingly" like if we had fallen sick or something like that. But I would think that sudden death like this is harder to deal with, especially when you know that someone is just fine and is not suffering from any sickness, and therefore you have no warning whatsoever, and the next minute that person is taken away from you forever.

I was just thinking, what if I die a sudden death like this too. How will my son cope? Does he know how to handle all my "undone stuff"? I would leave with no "pesanan", no advices, no instructions, no nuthing. Can he run errands? Can he finish what Ive started? I mean...there are thousands of stuff that are in my head and can he possibly know what they are? Usually it would be the spouses who will take over and handle from there on, but as for me, Ive got no one but my son. These thoughts are truly unthinkable. Sad...but this is a fact of life.

Never procrastinate. Do what your heart desires to people you care and love or even to yourself. Say what your heart desires to people you care and love. Give your most to people you care and love. See and visit people you care and love more often. Show your love and care to people who matter to you. Share your feelings and thoughts to people you trust and respect. Never with-hold your thoughts, your feelings, your views whatsoever with your most loved ones. Because we dont know when our time is up.

Belated Birthday Celebration for Anis and Mood

2005-10-23T13:30:00.000+08:00

These are the smallest gemstones and the better quality ones

These are the slightly bigger ones. My favorites are the South African Tiger Eyes and Aventurines

These are the biggest ones and are just as pretty

These are the "tutti fruities" stones that Rozi like so much :)

These are the Lovely Lace beetle bugs we gave away as door gifts at Darling's 16th birthday party

These are some of the CDs given to Rozi....like Ronan Keating, Michael Buble, Westlife, Zainal Abidin and Hattan

Last Thursday nite, a small number of us, the Lembing cronies, gathered for Sahur to celebrate the belated birthdays of two of our best pals, Anis and Mood. Anis' birthday was on October 17 and Mood was on September 5th. Coincidentally, Rozi arrived from Brunei to spend the long weekend with her family and so we thought that it would be a good reason to hang together :). I gave to Anis and Mood our gang's birthday "angpows". Somehow, in the midst of my crazy schedule these couple of weeks, I had forgotten to get each of them a birthday card to write down our gang's birthday wishes for the two celebrants. *Sowie to the gang*!

I picked up Rozi from KLIA on Thursday nite around 9pm and came back to Shah Alam and discussed on where to hang out. As usual, we have ran out of ideas on places to hang out. It is either we are out of touch of the fancy places or simply that we have outgrown "hanging out" phases of our lives. Hahahaha. But we all agreed that we should stick around to either SJ, Sunway or simply Shah Alam areas.

We waited for Anis and Mood to call us as Anis had to wait for Mood to arrive at the LRT Station so that she could pick him up first. Meanwhile, at home, we were "catching up" with Rozi on the "latest happenings". Kewl updates hehehe :) :). Then we were taking out stuff to be exchanged. She took out the 17 DVDs (all the titles were requested by June and Darling) that we ordered from her. And she said that she couldn't bring home my "LOST" and my two seasons of "SEINFELD" yet :( :(. Another time.....I gave her the South African gemstones that I've saved for her. She was so excited but a bit disappointed because I couldn't find the "tutti fruities" that are carved out of colorful stones for her. For the life of me, I just simply cannot remember where my ex had gotten those fruit stones for me. If it wasn't from South Africa, then perhaps, it could be either from Oz or Turkey. But Rozi thought that they couldn't be from Oz because when she was in Oz, she was looking hi and lo for the stones but she couldn't find any. Okay....then perhaps they're from Turkey. I don't know why she fancies so much my tutti fruiti colorful stones (as you can see from the pix above). Hmmmm....

Then I gave her Darling's 16th birthday party door gift (and Rozi exclaimed out loud...Ohhh it is so cute and it is the SAME one I got from Feisal a long time ago...and I still have Feisals's!!! Oh wow...great minds think alike and great minds have the same taste *wink wink to Feisal* and I'm sure that CK is behind it as well. Hehehehe. It was this beetle bug from Lovely Lace and it is darn cute. We have three different types (as you can see from the pix above) and since we only saw Rozi then, we could give her the TQ gift then! Later I gave her some CDs (I'm like Rozi's regular supplier of CDs and music VCDs). I also gave her a 1.5 litre bottle of "Air Zam Zam" especially for her mum and a jar of Raya biscuits as we will not be seeing each other for Hari Raya because she will only be home for about 4 days and I will be at UB Heights then. And I also gave her like 24 tetra packs of creme milk and chocolate milk drinks (don't ask me who gave them to me...well, we have so many.)So much for exchanging of stuff between us :)

Then at about 11pm, Anis called saying that she had just picked up Mood from the LRT Station and we decided to hang at Pan Pacific Glenmarie (now called Holiday Inn). We arrived at the coffeehouse and we were very surprised to see no one there. The coffeehouse was empty and tables were dirty with used plates and cutleries...the buffet table were also messed up. Obviously they had just finished the Ramadhan buffet and hadn't cleaned up the mess yet. But none of the hotel's staff was at the door to greet us. Finally one guy came to us (after we made so much noise calling out "Helllllooooo...anyone home??" Duh! And he said that they would be closing at midnite. We loked at our watches and it was half past 11pm. So there.

We decided to go to Shah Alam Concorde coffeehouse as I was pretty sure that they were opened 24 hours. And so we went. I parked my car at the "undesignated and illegal roadside parking" that we the Shah Alam residents usually do when we go to Concorde Shah Alam and we walked inside the hotel. Then I saw this sign that says "MPSA will tow away cars that are parked illegally on the bla bla bla....And a fine of RM300 will be imposed bla bla..." So I told Rozi and Mood to get a table for 5 at the coffeehouse while I went to remove my car from the illegal parking. Then I saw Anis and June pulling over and I told her to park inside the hotel's carpark area and as I was walking to my car, Rozi called, saying "You wouldn't believe this. They are closed for pest control!!!" Duh Duh!! Ohh what a nite....there we were searching for a 24 hours coffeehouse in this vicinity and what a shocker. We couldn't find any!

Then Mood (as usual) used his charm to get one of the girls at the front office to call up any hotel in this area and to find out if they were open 24hours. And so she did...Grand Blue Wave...opened until 2am. So we headed for the place. When we arrived, the coffeehouse was empty but at least they had food at the buffet table....supper buffet. So we thought we might as well went for the supper buffet. The food wasn't a big deal....it was pretty mediocre for a 4star hotel (I think) but what the hey...it was RM23 nett per pax. So be it. Anyways we were starving and very very tired :(

We ate and ate....Mood was missing half the time (he got a phone call from a girl). There was so much of gabbing between us like as if we hadn't met in years and years! From travels (past and the future...yes...we were already making plans for future travels among us hehe), to the ghost stories in Brunei (yes...Rozi was giving us the low down of the recent ghost stories about this group of stupid girls who were playing with tis wichibod *but more of the spirit of the coins game* and the spirits refused to go home and were haunting the girls..so it seemed), to the new wife of the King who shopped for her beach palace in London, to Rozi's **th birthday celebration next year and we were already discussing on this major party which she intends to do and would like all the Lembing cronies to go to Brunei (I told her to have it on a love boat and it will definitely be a birthday celeb of the decade! Yup...like the love boat I partied my heart out during Summers in Pittssburgh!), to Rozi's brother's wedding in March, to our New Year celebration at Sunway (yess...I already booked two rooms at Sunway to celebrate New Year!), to ohh my God...so many other stories! We just wished that more of our cronies (like CK, F and Y, Rose and family, KC and S, KJ, Lanlove and F, Zaki, MM and J..and a few others) were there. We really miss all those good ol' times of Lembing. Heh :)

Before we left the hotel, I packed 2 fish and chips for Darling and Ahmad (my nephew who came over to hang with Darling at home). Came home around 2.30am and still gabbing non-stop (occasionally arguing with Mood because he is SOOO MOOD ya know what I mean..if you're a Lembinger you'd know exactly what I mean hahaha). Half of the time he would have lame excuses and the other half, he would try to make some sense in what he was talking about. Before we left the hotel, Mood "sempat lagi" chatted up with the girl at the front office. We had to wait for him at the elevator with its door opened. When he finally came into the elevator, we didn't ask him the usual question we asked in the past like "were you hitting on her?" (because he would always answer "no...it was her...not me"). So now we simply asked, "so you got her number?".

June and Rozi gabbed until the sun rose and woked up only like a couple of hours later. The kids were fast asleep before I dozed off I don't know what time it was. Mood was already snoring away wayy before anyone else (so much for him wanting to watch the 17 titles we just got from Rozi). It seemed like everyone had gotten up before 9.30am. That was because Darling's tutor was coming to have a class with him at 9.30am. We got ready to go out. I took Rozi to PKNS because she wanted to buy the same "baju sembahyang" that I have. She said that the material was so cooling and very nice...heavy at the bottom because of the fancy and big laces and the sarung is very long. I told her that I like the "telekung" as the "baju" is not too long else I would be drowned in it. It is very practical for Umrah because as it is not too long, it will not get in my way especially when I had to be in crowded places like "tawaf" and also because the laces make it heavy, the baju will not fly away, and the cotton poloni material make it so soft and cooling in the hot weather of Mecca. I got the "telekung" from CK and Rose for my umrah last year ( :) :) to CK and Rose...TQVM my dearies :)...yea Rozi also want the same one laa). Aya, my sis, told me that she also got the same one at PKNS but she did forewarn me that "telekungs" are seasonal and usually the suppliers don't bring in the same ones from Indonesia all the time. Anyways, I told Rozi, "if ada rezeki you, adalah". We inched every corner of PKNS looking for the same "telekung" but we couldn't find it. True enough to what Aya had said, it was a seaonal thing with "telekungs". But I promised Rozi that if I saw it again, I'll get for her 3 pairs. Perhaps, if I see the same one in Jakarta, I'll get for her for sure. As it turned out, Rozi bought for herself some "soft chiffon colorful selendangs" and we both bought some "ketupat palas", "ketupat nasi" with "rendang ayam" for berbuka puasa. We left PKNS and then we went to Granny's Corner. Rozi wanted to get some wicker baskets for her plants. By the time we got home after much shopping in Shah Alam, it was past Zuhur. We packed our stuff and got ready to leave the house. I had to offload Ahmad at Mama's house (my sister-in-law invited her family for berbuka puasa at her house and so I had to drop off Ahmad there), then offload Mood at the Batu Tiga Komuter Station, then sent Rozi home to Puchong, then only we were on our way home to UB Heights. We called our parents to inform them that we would be arriving after berbuka puasa only because by the time I sent off Rozi at her apartment, it was already 6pm. Before we parted, I told Rozi that if she was up to it (and us too), we could hang out for supper, then she can sleep over at our place on Saturday nite and I can drop her off at KLIA on Sunday afternoon (her flight back to Brunei was on Sunday at 3pm). We planned to come back to Shah Alam from UB on Saturday nite. And so, we didn't do much of a farewell as we thought that we could still be seeing each other on Saturday nite.

We arrived at UB Heights at about 7.45pm. As soon as we had our meal, I started with what I really intended to do at UB...that was to spring clean our kampung house for the Hari Raya. Usually, when it comes to spring cleaning, all eyes would look at me laa....standard instruction every year :). Of course June and Darling were glued to the TV and my parents went for "terawih". The house was quite "unorganised" because we had to take out some stuff and had to push aside some furniture to make way for the "kenduri doa selamat" we had before my parents went for Umrah, and after they got home, my mom wasn't well and so we told her not to clean the house, but to wait until we came home to clean it for her.I was expecting Aya and family to come home that nite so that she could help me with the spring cleaning. I stopped cleaning a bit past midnite as I was too tired to go on. Then me and my mom watched the live feed of "terawih" from Mesjidil Haram for a bit.

Woke up for sahur around 4.30am. Had to eat "puas puas" my mom's "beef rendang kuning with daun puding" and "lauk kuning cili padi pucuk pergaga" and "sayur masak lemak pucuk manis"...hmmm...yum yum. Of course, I woke up for that! Then after sahur, me and June watched a docu on "Boudica" over national discovery. Very interesting indeed. Aya and family finally arrived around 7.30am. Yippeee! We didn't waste much time...while she and the kids were taking care of the huge "halaman rumah" because the grasses had grown and there were so many "kemucup" everywhere, Aya and the kids had to mow the grass. I was busy inside the house doing somemore spring cleaning. Well, it is actually a huge "rumah kampung". My brother-in-law was busy at the Kuala Pilah market buying some stuff to bring back to SJ.

We broke Fast at kampung and then only we came back to Shah Alam last nite. We thought of hanging out with Rozi again before she went back to Brunei. But as it turned out, she and her siblings went shopping to Sunway Pyramid, then they caught a late nite "B" movie, and by that time it was pretty late and we were all very exhausted.

Well, we hope to catch up with the gang very soon. InsyaAllah, during Hari Raya. It will be yet another exciting gathering. As always :) I wonder when will we, the entire Lembing group, can gather again next. Perhaps, we should consider having a "Lembing Nite" every year *looking at F, of course*. Hehehehe.

Can't Take My Eyes Off You - by Gloria Gaynor

2005-10-17T23:35:00.000+08:00

You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you
You'd be like Heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you

Pardon the way that I stare
There's nothing else to compare
The sight of you leaves me weak
There are no words left to speak
But if you feel like I feel
Please let me know that it's real
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you

I love you, baby
And if it's quite alright
I need you, baby
To warm a lonely night
I love you, baby
Trust in me when I say
I love you, baby
Don't bring me down I pray
Oh pretty baby, now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby
Let me love you

I'm So Lonely

2005-10-17T19:15:00.000+08:00

Poor lonely chipmunks :( but I guess I'm lonelier than them chipmunks. Lonely....I'm so lonely....I got nobody....to call my ooowwwnnn...oooh lonely...I'm so lonely....Cute...cute !!

Candle in the Wind

2005-10-16T22:07:00.000+08:00

Every year around mid of this month, there is one shopping that I must admit I do not quite enjoy one bit. And every year I would ask myself if that was necessary (the shopping I mean). October 15 is my son's sister's birthday and for the last 4 years I have been out shopping to get her a very nice birthday present. Of course, every year I would do it for my son and not for me. Which is the obvious. I started to recall...the first year, I bought her a very cute pair of Timberland boots; the second year, a beautiful frock from a kid's boutique in Subang Parade...the Princess Boutique I think; the third year, I bought her also another very pretty gown from the same boutique; and this year (upon the request of my son), I bought her an Oshkosh Tee and a very cute Teddy Bear.

Everytime I went shopping for her, I simply cannot find a reason why there was a real need for me to go through it. Honestly, I do not find pleasure in shopping for gifts for her. I mean....this is the daughter of my ex-husband and I always wonder how many ex-wives like me would shop for birthday gifts of their ex-husbands' children. These provoking thoughts obviously are quite painful. Of course, I have always wondered if his wife knew that it was me who had gone shopping for her daughter's birthday gifts (my tastes and preferences), rather than thinking that it was my son who had picked up the presents for his sister. Well, we made them believe that that was the case :)

I guess deep down in my heart I probably found some small pleasures in buying gifts for a daughter whom I never had. And the fact that she is my son's sister....I thought that that was every bit the compelling reason. But every year this shopping has given me no more than painful provoking thoughts, silent tears in my heart, and an envious and jealousy feeling only God knows. I just hope that some day that tiny bit of pleasure I think I may have that is buried deep inside will prevail somehow and take over my painful feelings and would make me all smiling with happiness when I go shopping for her future birthdays.

Shoppings for an ex-husband or his wife (oh yes...done that too) or his kids are not an easy thing to do and I don't know how many ex-wives would do it with no mixed emotions. But all my life (almost), I guess I have just been doing that. Although I have "survived" the shoppings, only God knows what my heart feels and had to weather through.

My son is always very happy that I never forget to shop for his father and sister on special ocassions. I guess, to me, that will always matter the most. That my son is happy.

My mother never fail to call me "Candle in the Wind". And my late mother-in-law used to call me Sue Ellen of the famous nightime soap "DALLAS" and my ex-husband JR Ewing.

Candle in the Wind......I guess I was made to be one. Alhamdullillah if it is meant to be :)

My Parents....."Tetamu Allah"

2005-10-16T20:56:00.000+08:00

My parents on the morning of their departure, September 30, 2005

As most of my close friends know, my parents left for umrah on September 30th. In my post entitled "Sum of My Fears", I was quite worried of their safety, health, and well being while in Mecca. Because they are old and are not really so healthy. We sent them off at KLIA on Friday morning of September 30th, and I was so so pleasantly surprised to see one couple who is so so familiar to us. We met for the first time last year when me and my parents went for Umrah. The couple, Hj B and Hjh F, were also in our group then we had gotten to know each other and became quite good friends. From time to time, we would keep in touch over the last year. But we didn't expect to see them at KLIA, leaving for umrah, together with the same group as my parents (again!) on that day. My heart was so relieved to see at least two faces whom my parents are so familiar of. I thought to myself, "Alhamdullillah.....at least the couple can keep an eye on my parents :)". My parents, too, were very happy to know that they were in the same group.

Everyday we would receive SMSes from my mother telling us of what they did in Madinah and Mecca. We were happy to receive the daily news and most importantly knowing that they were safe and sound :).

My parents returned from Mecca on October 13, feeling obviously very tired and exhausted. Although my father arrived home feeling quite healthy and fine, but my mother was having a very bad cough. In fact, she had her athma attack nearing the end of their stay in Mecca. I just know why she had her attack. Obviously, she never listened, not to us or my father. I just knew that she would want to do as many umrahs as possible. I told her not to over-exhaust herself (as it is the Ramadhan month and Mecca would be too crowded) by performing many umrahs if her physical strength couldn't take it. But, no, she just wanted to do as many as possible during her stay there. Alhamdullillah.

So, we had to take her to ER at SJMC over the weekend and now she is recuperating quite well. We thought that she would be admitted (again) but thank God the doctor said that it is quite alright if she wants to recuperate at home.

All in all, they are very happy that they were again the "Tetamu Allah" in Mecca and of course, they want to do it again and again :) My mother said with deep sadness, "Kali ni Mak tak dapat cium Hajar Aswad (this time mom could not kiss Hajar Aswad)". I said, "Tak apa la....kan tahun lepas Mak dah cium banyak kali. Ni tengah musim orang ramai sebab bulan puasa (it is alright...last year you had kissed it many times. This is a peak season because it is the Fasting month)".

Syukur Alhamdullillah they are back safely. I thank all of my close friends who had sent well wishes to my parents, through phonecalls and SMSes, and who had prayed that Allah SWT kept them safe, healthy and protect them all the time there.

Pssstttt....I was writing this post when my mother saw and being the usual nosey-she, she asked me what I was doing and I had to explain to her that I'm updating my blog. She asked if she could read my blog and of course I couldn't say "no". So, I figured I'd better let her read my posting entitled "UB Heights - Our Sanctuary" because I thought she would feel proud that I've written about our family's pride. She was so excited when she saw her picture there and everything else about UB Heights. She asked "how come you didn't put other pictures in?" Heh. But before she asked me other questions, seriously her VERY first question was pretty much THE OBVIOUS!! I just KNEW that was coming. And I'm just glad to answer her with a smile on my face "YES.....YES.......Every morning at 7.30am!" :) :) :)

Our Three Bs

2005-10-12T07:27:00.000+08:00

This is Blackie, fast asleep, and feeling quite happy knowing that Bubbles and BJ are out of his sight!

This is BJ, looking out from the patio, quite possibly thinking of how he can jump over the railing down onto an awning below for some far-out adventure!

This is Bubbles. She is rather arrogant and not-so-friendly because she does not like to be cuddled or touched!

Bubbles trying to run away from me as I was taking pictures of her.

Aren't they cute and adorable?

Introducing our three Bs......Bubbles (a Birman), Billy Joe or BJ (a domestic shorthair) and Blackie (a domestic shorthair). While my parents are away in Mecca, we have to babysit Bubbles and BJ. And mind you, it is a 'no joke' job! Because Blackie (our own) has this major attitude and territorial problem and he does not get along at all with any other cat. So you can imagine how we handle the three Bs in our apartment. We have shifts. When Bubbles or sometimes we call her Bubs, and BJ get out of their room, Blackie goes into his cage. And when Blackie starts to grumble and complain of being in the cage too long, then Bubbles and BJ get to go into the room. And I just cannot understand what their problem is...they neither want to share potties nor a bowl of food and water.Wonder where they inherit that bad attitude from. But of course Bubbles and BJ are best friends! Aren't they cute and cuddly? Actually they are very adorable in spite of their bad attitude :)

UB Heights - Our Sanctuary

2005-10-02T18:42:00.000+08:00

This is our family's heritage. We named it UB Heights (short for Ulu Bendul), located at mid-way between Seremban to Kuala Pilah, in Negeri Sembilan. This little UB Heights cottage was originally built by my late great grandfather, who passed it onto my late grandmother, and who passed it onto my mother, and quite recently, my mother passed this entire property to me and my son. So, in short, it has been in our family for 5 generations (including my son's generation!). Of course, the cottage was much much smaller orginally, and over the years, my late grandmother and now my parents have enlarged, renovated and refurnished it to make it look like what it is right now. This is where the family hang out at some weekends (especially during Hari Raya Aidil Fitri, Hari Raya Aidil Adha, during kenduris, and of course during the fruits seasons!). It is only about 1 1/ 2 hours drive south from where I live. UB Heights is the pride of my parents. They have obviously worked very hard at upkeeping and maintaining the property. It is a typical kampung cottage that we see all the time...nothing fancy or artsy about it. Just a regular kind of "rumah kampung", but the fact that it has been with the family for 5 generations now, we are very proud of it. My father (who is a typical Kampung boy himself) loves to live in a kampung and simply love to do whatever it takes to make UB Heights pretty and lovely. At times, UB Heights is an envy to many in the village.

As you can see from the pix, we have a very large fish and prawn pond in front of our house. In the evenings, my father's friends like to come and fish there. We still have plenty of fish in the pond, eventhough my father does not do anymore fish or prawn activities. He used to participate in the fish and prawn industries with the help of the government, but we told him to stop eversince a few years ago, after our Indonesian worker left the country. We thought that he should retire as it is not a job for an old man to do anymore farming and fish/prawn activities. Now, he basically rears sheeps (as you can see from the pix). Not that we need to rear sheeps, but like I said, my father is a typical kampung man, and he will feel helpless and hopeless if he does not do any kampung work or activities. We used to have like 15 ponds rearing prawns at one time and after we harvested the prawns, we would sell them to some suppliers . But now, we only lease the ponds to some interested parties on a long term basis. But there are some ponds that my father has converted to normal land (due to demand) and now they are being leased out to some dragon fruits farmers (as you can see from the pix as well).

UB Heights is beautifully sandwiched in between two lovely hills (in front and at the back of our house) and it gets pretty cold at nite. We have a rubber plantation at the back of our house and beyond the dragon fruit plantation, there is a very nice river flowing into our land. It is the same river that flows from the famous Ulu Bendul Waterfall (if you have heard of it). It is truly a pretty site and I have this dream to build an American cottage (don't ask me why an American cottage...more like a log cabin actually. Heh) by that river someday! Haha! It is just a dream. But who knows someday, I may have this dream cottage after all.

UB Heights......it is truly a santuary of its kind. And my family is obviously very proud to own this beautiful piece of property. I just wish that I could go back there more often. Each time we leave UB Heights, a one-of-a-kind-of-sadness feeling would linger for a few days.

Some of my Lembing friends have experienced UB Heights. I hope they still remember the fond memories we had back then. Going into the ponds to catch the tiger prawns and fish. And of course the BBQ under the rambutan trees. And the mat under the tree where a few of us stole a cat nap!!

UB Heights - the road leading to our beloved cottage The view from our living room
UB Heights cottage frontal view
Dad and June
Mom and June
June and Aisyah
June and Alysha
A side view of Dad's fish pond
A hill at the backdrop
Ahhh....Fishing in the evening
The dragon fruit plantation in front of our house
Dragon fruit plantation in front of our house

Little 5-year old Princess Alysha
My brother, Jimmy with his daughter, Aisyah
Dad's sheeps
These two young ladies simply love the sheeps!

My sister, Ida, with her daughter, Alysha and Aisyah

Celebration for two Dato's

2005-10-02T17:10:00.000+08:00

There was a big family reunion to celebrate a very happy ocassion on Friday nite. Of course, i wasn't invited as I'm no longer in the family but at least I still maintain a very close relationship with my ex in-laws, including my ex-husband. I only got to know about the good news at the very last minute. Apparently the family gathered in PJ Hilton on last Friday nite to celebrate two of my ex brothers-in-law (my ex-husband's two elder brothers) who were conferred with Dato'-ships recently. The elder one got the Dato' ship from Yam Tuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan on September 16 (I think) and the younger one got his Dato' ship from the Sultan of Trengganu on September 17(or the other way around. Whatever!). I was not surprised at all because I've always known that these two would eventually get their Dato's sooner or later. But I would be quite surprise if my ex would get a Dato'. Now if that happens, wouldn't I be rolling on the floor and wailing? No point crying over spilled milk woman!! And to miss the opportunity of being addressed as "Datin"? Of course, I would be crying over the bloody spilled milk. Now wouldn't you?? I just remembered that when we were vacationing in South Africa, Zaid (our friend-cum-guide) asked me politely if I was a "Dato'". Muahahaha! I said "Of course NOT!". Then he said. "Hmmm.....I'm not too sure if you are telling me the truth." Aisey man.....now that was a cool compliment :)

Anyways, back to the story about my ex brothers-in-law who got their Dato's. According to Darling, his Daddy organised the entire reunion-cum-celebration dinner with Mama (Darling's aunty). I just knew that if it was my ex who was organising it, it has to be a pretty much mundane affair. True enough. Well, my ex said, "Doa selamat la (prayers for blessings)....not hellulujah!". Okay fair enough.

Darling insisted that he gets a new shirt for the event. I cannot understand why when he has an entire 2 wardrobes to choose just a piece of fancy collared tee or a shirt for that nite. And I just don't know when he started to get so fashionable. I obviously seemed to lose track of time because kids grow up so damn fast nowadays but I don't want to grow old just as fast. Duh. I thought I was the fashionable one in the house! Okay, my glamorous days are over. Now it is like "Step aside Mom....give way to da dude in da house!" Okay, I get the drift. Ohhh....did you know that last week at school Darling had this Drama Club's year end party and he won the second prize in the best dressed student thingy? He of course wore like Indiana Jones wannabe. Hehehehe. Pretty cool. He wore his Dad's leather jacket and also Dad's Indiana Jones' leather hat he got from the States.

Anyways I told Darling that I did not have the time to send him shopping for a new shirt. Lucky for him, my sister from Perak arrived at my house that evening and she wanted to go for a hair cut. June suggested that she go to see her hairstylist at Pyramid Mall and so, all three went to have a good time, and me? Stuck at campus!

Darling came home with a very nice and fashionable shirt and a tie from Topman. I told him not to spend more than RM200. But you know how it is with kids....of course, he had spent more than the RM200 I approved. Kids never listen don't they?? Like as if we listen to our parents? So....what goes around comes around aye? Anyways, they are very lovely indeed. I must say that my son has developed a very tasteful passion for trendy fashion. Now I wonder where he got that traits from? If I say from me, I'm sure his Dad would say from him too. Well, let just say that we both have exquisite tastes :)

Then Darling had a problem. He didn't know how to tie a tie. Don't look at me! Lucky for him, my father was around that nite and Grandpa helped him to tie a beautiful tie. It was very lovely indeed. Hmmm...my Dad has retired from the public services for like...lemme see....almost 20 years now, and he still remembers to tie a tie! I guess, it's like riding a bicycle or swimming. You just never forget.

Darling and his cousins had a pleasant surprise for their two uncles, the VIPs of the nite. They performed a few songs on the stage. I asked them if Daddy knew about their intention to perform and they answered with straight faces, "No". I said "Well..OK. That's kewl with me.". Then Darling said, "You know how Dad is Mom. He is so boring. And the nite will be very boring and uneventful. So we want to rev up the nite a little bit la.". I said, "Okay...I'm not telling your Dad then".

They were practising at home with me giving some comments and ideas here and there. They looked pretty much well prepared to me. Heh. Dad called asking Darling, "Ask Ummi if she has some instrumental CDs". I thought....wei...how come you didn't think of everything? A good event manager must think of everything! Then I remembered what Darling had said about Dad. Okay. So, I gave a few of my Balinese gamelan, my late nite sax music, my Shahin&Seper music, and my Chris Speeris music. That should do it I thought.

Darling came home almost 1am. They had a good nite. Darling said that he and his band were the limelight stealers! I thought so. Too bad Mama or my ex didn't pass through Darling a door gift for me. Bwaaaasss :( :( I knew that the door gifts were Ferraro Rocher Chocs giftpacked in golden pouches!!! Bwaaaasssss !!!

June asked me, "Now does that mean from now onwards, we have to call Ayah Ngah and Ayah Chik, Dato'??"

Well.....I'll be darned if I have to. But I would be DARNER if I had to call my ex "Dato'" someday. Oh no...the thought is so so so torturing....sob sob.

See if this knocks you off your chair.

2005-09-26T14:53:00.000+08:00

Ladies hear this shocking story. Last month, my sister-in-law's younger sister who is married to an Irish man and has been living in the UK for more than 20 years came home with her son to visit the eldest sister who is diagnosed of a womb cancer. She came home for three weeks (she usually comes home with her son to visit families at least once in every 2 years or so) leaving her hubby at their Chester home. During the absence of the wife, the hubby (probably got very very very bored) started to try out getting online and chatted with some people. He has never been online because the PC is more or less controlled by the teen-aged son and as he works most of the time, he has never found any interest nor time to enjoy the excitement of getting online.

So during the period of him being alone for 3 weeks, he has gotten to know "online" one Thai divorcee, aged 41, with 3 kids, living in Thailand, and is taking care of a sick mother. They have been online eversince then for hours and hours everyday and everynite and to cut the story short, they fell in love!! Duh!! All these happened during the 3 blardy weeks while the wife is out here in KL visiting a very sickly sister. The wife didn't smell anything fishy or funny during the 3 weeks but as soon as she and her son touched down in Manchester Airport, they got into their Mercedes A class car, then the Irish man finally spoke! He said "I divorce U!!!". Both mother and son were so so so speechless, so so so shocked....they thought the Irish man was joking. No, he wasn't joking nor was he kid-ding or fooling around. He in fact divorced her (not once, not twice....but three times....talak 3 lagi!!!).

At home, all the beans were spilled out of the bag. He said he has met the love of his life. He wants the wife out of their Chester home, pack her bags and leave. He wants to start a new life with this Thai woman, he is even willing to try it out for a year living in Thailand with her. In fact, during the short 3 weeks, he has sent her some money. Imagine how a man can be a fool in love...there is no bigger fool than an old fool in love.

During these last couple of weeks, the hubby has taken her to see the Mesjid's Imam at Manchester to make their divorce official and they have gone to our Malaysian Embassy to do the same too. He said there is nothing to discuss. This is IT...IT...IT. End of story.

He is very pleased now to know that she is leaving home next week on a one-way ticket. Her son is coming home with her but only for a while because he has the intention of continuing his schooling in the UK. We feel very sad and sorry for her because she will have a more difficult time compare to other women of the same situation as she not only has to go through post-divorced period and handle all the emotions, but she also has to adjust herself in a country that is now foreign to her. Her family is speechless, flabbergasted. There is no word to describe how they feel, they are lost for words and they don't know what to think, to evaluate and to assess this shocking news.

Are all Irish men as brutal and inhuman as he? I wonder. I know that there are many stupid jokes which are related to Irish men, but I don't think this has got anything to do with stupidity. It is just an old fool being in love. But to treat a good wife like this, to divorce her just like that, with no basis and solid reasons, I think that it is simply "animal-like". She has done so much for him, namely like juggling very cleverly 2 jobs so as to help him out with the bills, the beautiful home, the very nice Merc, and to maintain a 17 year old son through school.

I've come across many ASSHOLES and BASTARDS in my life but this one tops the list. Imagine losing your hubby like this. Like a drama in TV yes? To lose your hubby to a real flesh and blood woman that you can get to see is already heartbroken and torturous (but at least that is the usual and regular kinda way we lose our man...and our brains can digest and accept it as it doesn't insult our intelligence) but to lose your hubby to a woman you only get to see via a stupid camera, half across the world, and you wonder if she is for real or unreal, and to let his peanut-sized brains to decide to sacrifice a whole long long long 19 years (I repeat 19 years) to an incomparable 3 blardy weeks (I repeat 3 weeks), he must be absolutely insane and mad. Or he is near death.

This thing is an insult to my intelligence...a MAJOR insult to my good brains because I tot-allly like cannnnnot think of how low a class one can be.

Ladies.....do you ever wonder how low can men get with women? Anything lower than this, I'd imagine would be lower than the animals.

A Near Fatal Accident

2005-09-18T15:32:00.000+08:00

Like I said, my mind is all mixed up right now. A few things are worrying me and a few things are just ticking me off like a time bomb. Yesterday I had to send off June to Pyramid Tower as she was meeting up with a friend who just came home from Tokyo. On the way to Pyramid Tower, we stopped at USJ3 to pick up my other sister because she wanted me to take her to one of my fave shops where I sometimes get my dinnerwares and all.

As we were driving along the road towards Summit's junction, we were almost the victims of what could be a fatal accident! We were on the middle lane, and there were cars driving besides us on the fast lane as well as the slow lane, all heading towards the Summit junction. Then suddenly a Proton Sedan came out of a junction from the opposite direction trying to get across towards the inside road leading to USJ2. And in front of her was a 4WD who had also just crossed over. The driver (a young Chinese girl) thought that she could do the crossing-over in a zap without causing any worry. But she was wrong because she under-estimated the timing. All of us (the three cars on each lane) were getting so very close to the crossing over junction and unfortunately all three of us were pretty fast. I had to slam my emergency brakes and that caused my car to swerve left and right (trying so hard to avoid the cars on my left and right) and the other two cars on my sides were also slamming on their emergency brakes so as not to knock the Proton while she was trying to cross over right in front of us. There were a lot of screeching noises and dust flying all over! The car escaped but left us in the cars looking white like zombies. Luckily the car behind me were very fast to react as well else he would have knocked my behind. We were merely inches away from hitting the Proton Sedan. Total silence in my car. More total silence. And more total silence.

All the stuff I had behind my car were flown all over to the foot carpet on the floor. Aya, June and me were observing total silence. We were in a state of shock, a horrifying experience that could turn into a nitemare. Immediately, my heart was beating so very fast and my migraine attacked me just as immediately. I thought I couldn't go on anymore. I just had to pull over.

When we were calmer, Aya said that if we had hit the Proton, she would go out of our car and slapped the Chinese girl (whom we thought just had her driver's license). I thought, well, yes, she could do that if we were not injured or worse. It could be a T-Bone accident (as my brother-in-law had put it) because we, the 3 cars could have hit her sides (and she was not alone, she had some people sitting in the co-driver's seat as well as at the back!). So he said that's a T-Bone!

And my migraine lasted all day yesterday and all nite. It is slightly better today but not just quite. If I suffer from a heart attack, it may be even fatal for me :(. Luckily we didn't have any children in the car because it would be very dangerous for them (the experience plus the chance that the kid may get thrown inside the car). Even Aya, who was seated in the co-driver's seat got thrown in front and if not for the seat belt, she would have hit the windscreen.

All I could say is "Syukur Alhamdullillah". Why do we even tolerate all these reckless drivers on the roads. I give up.

A Fractured Thumb

2005-09-18T14:43:00.000+08:00

These last couple of months, I've been going back and forth SJMC so many times. At one night, we took three sick people to the ER (my parents and Darling) because my father was down with fever, and a very bad cough; my mother was having her athma attack and was having a very bad cough as well; and Darling too was having the same symtoms as my father. Perhaps we could blame the smog for causing all that.

And so there we were at the ER. My sister came down from Perak after knowing that my parents were sick and me and my other sister went back to kampung to fetch my father so that we could take him to SJMC. And around 10pm, we were all assembled at the ER. When the nurses called for the sick people, we had my father being examined in one room, and Darling being examined in another room while my mother was having her nebuliser on the bed in one corner. And I was coming in and out of three examination rooms at the same time. Phew!

Darling had to take blood test to rule out dengue. Thank God that it was not dengue. The doctors released my father and Darling but had to admit my mother as her athma was rather bad. So by the time she was warded, it was already midnite. Over the course of the next few days I found myself zapping in and out of lectures, at home (taking care of the needs of two sick people there) and SJMC (my mother). Luckily June was at home making sure that the two sick people do not miss their medications and my other sister attended to all the meals and my other sister, Aya, babysitted my mother from time to time at SJMC. My mother was warded for 4 days.

And only last Friday evening we were at the ER again! This time was to send Darling to see the doctor (again!). He was playing football in school on Friday afternoon and had injured himself (again!) when his friend was tackling him and accidentally he banged onto the school fence. By the look of his thumb, it did look to me like it could be broken. So we went to get an X-Ray and it was found that he had a fractured thumb alright. He was hoping to get a cast (he said that cast is kewl), but the doctor said that there is no need to cast because the thumb is small and there isn't enough area to cast....and since the broken chip is rather small, he said to let it be and in 3-4 weeks' time, the broken chip of bone will merge back. And today, the thumb is swollen (as expected) and he is in pain.

My Mom asked me to tell Darling to stop playing football because he has been having so many fractures eversince he was small. In a way she is right (that Darling has had a few fractures). At one time when he was very young, we celebrated Hari Raya Puasa at SJMC (3 Rayas in a row). But football is his love. What can I say. His Dad played for Trengganu State at one time.

Only a couple of months ago (or even lesser I can't remember), Darling went through the same experience. A bee flew into our apartment one day and stung Darling's right hand's little finger. So it was swollen. June put the stingrose on his little finger. And like as if that wasn't enough, on the next day, Darling fell in the bathroom and landed on that same hand! Then he developed a lot of pain as it was really swollen and it became so red. I took him into ER (again) and the X-Ray didn't show any signs of anything fractured. The doctor said that the redness is due to the rupture of the veins and the swell is due to some infection and inflation.

Ahh well....and now it is STILL the same hand!

The Sum of My Fears

2005-09-18T13:03:00.000+08:00

My emotions have been deeply disturbed more so during these last couple of weeks. A few things had happened over the course of these last few weeks and a few are worrying me to a large extent while a few are simply annoying my head off.

One of the things that are worrying me is that a couple of weeks ago (during the recent school holidays), in just that one week alone, I had these two very disturbing dreams. I dreamt that my top front teeth (2 teeth, not 1) were broken! And as some of you would probably have heard, our grandparents or parents would say that if you dreamed that you had broken your tooth, it means that someone in the close family circuit is going to die :( Well, that is what my Mom told me when I was young. And as I had two of the same exact dream in one week, I thought that would call for some worry and concern. I told my sister, Aya, about my dream, and she said..."ahhh well...it's just a dream. Perhaps no cause for worry lah". I hope and pray to Allah SWT that it's just a meaningless dream.

I've got reasons to get worry because my parents will be performing their Umrah (again) and they're leaving on September 30. They asked me to go along with them but I can't this time. Because my parents want to be there for Ramadhan and my University is not close for the semester break just yet. Plus I thought that I may as well save up for Haj and if I keep on doing Umrah, when will I ever go for Haj. Mom agree with me and that's why she said, "if like that, then Mak and Abah je la pegi. You don't have to go la". To tell the truth, I've never agreed with their decision from the beginning. My Mom has been pestering me to arrange for them the Ramadhan Umrah package with Enesty Travel (my regular agent) eversince we got back from our last Umrah (which was only in May last year). But deep inside me I never wanted them to go on their own without me and so I played my simple trick like delaying things....not calling Enesty....package is full kind of stuff...expensive package bla bla ..just to discourage my Mom from going last year. But early this year, she said "We are going this year!!". So what can I say huh? Especially when this time around, they are paying on their own.

I've asked my siblings if anyone can accompany my parents for Umrah and none of us are able to for many reasons (mainly work). Three of us are academicians with the same University and our University is not close yet for now. And my sis, Aya, her eldest son is sitting for PMR very soon. And June is not keen to go (perhaps because she has already performed her Haj). When Hj Rosey of Enesty came to my place to hand over the Umrah bags, books and some other documents, much to my shock, I heard my Mom asking him how much would it cost to pay the Arabs to "sembahyang jenazah" in front of Kaabah (we see many jenazah whom the jemaah pray for in front of Kaabah at every "waktu sembahyang" there right. Apparently we have to pay the Saudis for that, else they will not "sembahyang jenazah depan Kaabah by all the jemaah"). Isn't that a horrifying question and thought? I was so deeply disturbed knowing that my parents are even thinking to that extent. I know my Mom always say that it's good to die in the Holy land (my Mom's mother passed away in Madinah and she is buried in Baqi') and I can't help thinking that my parents want the same thing.

I told Aya about my dream and she said that it's too late to make an arrangement for one of us to go along with my parents on this Umrah. I pray that it's just a meaningless dream but my sub-conscious mind just can't help worrying. I worry more about my father as he is already 73 years old and eventhough my mother is younger at 64, she is not so well and fit.

I've been having migraine non-stop, my emotions are very unstable right now, I'm not eating regularly, my blood pressure is very very low that on two occasions I nearly passed out. They'll be away in Mecca for 2 weeks and I know that that 2 weeks will be a nitemare for me as I'll worry my head off :(. I'm going to ask my ex-hubby to get his Ustaz to do sembahyang hajat everyday to keep my parents safe and sound while they're in Mecca. They are very determined to go and all we can do right now is to hang onto our prayers.

I guess the sum of all my fears is death within my close family. And it makes me kinda sad that I don't have anyone to share my fears with.

An Invited Thief

2005-09-15T20:42:00.000+08:00

Only 4 days ago, I remembered to get Darling's Sony Ericksson P800 handphone repaired at its service centre because of some problems with the battery. The P800 was only bought in late February last year as Darling's 15th birthday present from me and June. After he used it for like a month or so, then he wanted another Sony Ericksson handphone (call it "getting bored"), and the always-being-bullied-me got him another new handphone. I shouldn't have (I know!) because we just bought him that P800. So when he got his other Ericksson handphone, June asked if she could borrow the P800 (rather than it lying idle...it would be a shame isn't it?).

Sometime in June this year, after we came back from our South African vacation, June realised that the P800 was going cranky. It developed some signs of system failure probably due to the battery. Then Darling realised that the battery was bloated. Well, yeah...June admitted that the P800 had fallen once or twice. So, I decided that June should start using my standby Nokia so that I could get the P800 to the service centre. Because we hardly go to One Utama (that was where I had bought the P800), so I told Darling to pack the P800 nicely into its original box and I would ask for it whenever I'm ready to go to One Utama.

The P800 has been tucked nicely into its original box and that box was nicely stacked over some other handphone boxes in Darling's open book shelf in his room. So, that was it we thought...for now.

And when I asked Darling for the P800 because I might go to One Utama one of these days, he went to get the P800 original box from his room and we sat down to open the box. Much to our horror and shock, the P800 handphone and battery were missing from its box!!!! Huh??? Darling's face was shocked and I was confused (because I wasn't sure if that was where he had put it in the first place....a thought had crossed my mind...perhaps he had forgotten where he had put the P800). Then he went to his room and a few minutes later he came to me asking "Mum, did you take the P800 from the box?" And I asked, "What do you mean? Of course Mummy didn't take it out of the box...in fact Mummy had never seen it eversince Ashue has stopped using it." Then Darling's face was really getting red with his worst fears and worry....he then went to June's room and asked "Ashue.....did you take my P800 from its box?" Then June said "No. Why would I want to take it from the box...it's busted right?".

He went in and out of his room. After a loong few minutes, our worst fears surfaced....we knew that someone had taken it out of the box. Question is "Who" and "When". I asked him again and again if he was absolutely sure that he had put the P800 into its original box. He answered with confidence that he did. So, I told him if he is 100% sure that the P800 was in the box, then it must be stolen. What else can I think.

Darling has his friends over sometimes and a few had slept over. I guess it is pretty much "okay" to think that one of them has taken it from the box. Because the P800 box was displayed on his open book shelf and it is pretty much "loud" as Darling also has other handphone boxes being displayed together. Now that he is using a brand new Motorola PDA, he no longer use the other Sony Ericksson and that phone is also packed inside its box and stacked beneath the P800 box. Luckily, that one is still inside the box.

We have searched all the possible places for that P800 but failed. Evidently, we have to accept that it's gone. What a heartache....after all, the P800 wasn't cheap. I advised Darling to be more cautious now especially when he has some friends over. He now has decided to transfer all his expensive toys (like his Sony videocam, his Sony Supershot digital camera,his other Sony Ericksson handphone etc) into my room for safekeeping. I know that Darling can sometimes be like Father X'Mas because he likes to give away his things to friends (just like his parents!), but I did ask him if he had given away the P800 too. He said that I must be crazy. Okay.

Tonite he had some friends who came over without an announcement. I reminded him of his things again. A lesson to learn I said : "Mummy know that you would like to trust all your friends and would want to think that all of them are dudes of integrity and honesty. But there are some dudes who are not what you think they are and so you have to see now who is good and who is bad." I asked him to confront some of the dudes and asked them the obvious question. He said, "Are you crazy Mum? How can I ask? Isn't that being impolite?". Ahhhh.....now THAAAT trait he definitely got it from his parents alright. At times like this, that trait isn't really noble, is it? Traits like being a Father X'Mas and "don't want to hurt friends" are obviously out fashioned now I would want to think. At least there must be a line somewhere. Now how do I tell him where he should draw a line with his friends. A very sensitive matter indeed.

I called Sony Ericksson to make some enquiries if by some miracle, they could detect where the P800 is (perhaps through some sensoring device whatever). Of course NST (no such thing!). And I was just so curious to know how much the latest P910 cost now and he said a whopping RM2300. Wow....I told Darling that I can't afford another RM2+K handphone for him anymore. Already his new Motorola made a big dent in my pocket (RM2300) and it wasn't too long ago either.

This is his 3rd handphone being lost/stolen. And to think that I'm using all pass-down handphones .....not only Darling's pass-downs but also his Dad's pass-downs and his Dad's wife pass-down!! I'm beginning to think how pathetic I really am. Yessss!! I truly AM.

And a couple of months ago, i just found out that one of my standby Nokias (although a very basic and a bloody cheap one) is missing from my box as well. I smell a Father X'Mas was at work.

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 6)

2005-09-14T21:55:00.000+08:00

More pictures of Cape Town....Our friend-cum-guide, Zaid (a Malay Cape) is truly a wonderful man :). He really made the difference and more so, because of him, our vacation is sweeter and more memorable.

Zaid made us promise to return to South Africa so that we can do the Garden Route together. Now, that, will be truly awesome!

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 5)

2005-09-14T21:13:00.000+08:00

We had the opportunity to visit Robben Island, the most famous, or infamous island, for having been the isolated prison of former South African President Nelson Mandela and many other black political dissidents. For a whole generation of black South African prisoners, Robben Island was an alternative political university and a shared experience.And today, if you visit Robben Island, former political prisoners act as your guides!

We left for Robben Island pretty early in the morning (we were not sure if we could do Robben Island because the weather was rather bad. It was raining and the wind was very strong and of course the cold winter waves were very choppy....and I did not have on me my sea sick pill..heh). We left the Clock Tower Precinct at the Victoria&Albert Waterfront and the ride took us about 40 minutes or so. Well, the entire tour of Robben Island took about 3 1/2 hours.

The Island is also a World Heritage Site and home to African penguins (very adorable but not adorably-friendly) and a rich variety of marine bird life, some species of which are only found on the Island and one other site on the African coast.

The above photos are prison cell No 5, where Nelson Mandela used to stay for 22 years before he was transferred to the mainland for another 7 years due to health reasons.

We, of course, have more footages on video than pix on digicam :) The experience we had on Robben Island was pretty much a mixture of many emotions.

Our adventure continues.....

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 4)

2005-09-14T19:48:00.000+08:00

On our second day at Cape Town, we visited West Coast Ostrich Farm. Our guide, Ahmed, was very nice and he convinved us to try some ostrich steaks at the cosy restaurant on the Farm. Hmmm...the steaks were super yummy........and we had a great time at West Coast Ostrich Farm.

Our pictures above will tell you everything there is on this more-than-100 acre Farm :)

A Strange Beard

2005-09-11T03:10:00.000+08:00

After such a long long time, tonite somehow I had this urge to listen to a live band. I can't even remember the last time me and the cronies hang and chilled out at some clubs or hotel lounges. So, I guess it must be a LONG, LONG time ago. We decided to go shopping first before we do the live band. We didn't really shop till we dropped because we weren't exactly going on a spree. Moreover, the sales at Subang Parade ended last week (I think).....but we didn't really miss "missing" it. Heh. We were actually looking for some specific stuff. Well, I didn't get what I was looking for (which weren't exactly for me), but I was glad that I found something that I could use for myself :)

After shopping, we went to Sheraton Subang (the Piano Lounge) and listened to this 3-piece Phillippino band. The 2 girls were really pretty and sexy babes and the pianist really reminded me of someone whom I used to date when I was doing my undergrad studies in the US. Of course the pianist is perhaps in his 40's or so....and I can't help but to wonder if my ex-boyfriend had aged and looked pretty much like the pianist. Hmm.....it's a thought.....just a thought :) And oh by the way, one of the babes can really shake her belly like a belly dancer :).

The band wasn't really great (as most lounge bands would be), but my sister said that they were much better than the live band she saw with June and Anis a few weeks back at Pan Pacific Glenmarie (The Palm or whatever). We requested for quite a number of songs and were pleased that they fulfilled our requests. My sister wanted to request Alleycat's song but I told her not to embarrass me! But they did some of my fave numbers like "I Will Survive", "Fire", "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You", "Beautiful Maria", "Dancing Queen" and a few more. Too bad they can't do my all time fave "Sweet Child of Mine" :(.

As we were about to leave the Piano Lounge, I noticed a middle aged man and at the first sight of him, I laughed. My sister said that I was rude. But truthfully, I can't help laughing. Because this man has a very strange beard that is rather long, and is all white in color, and the strange thing about it is that his beard is splitted (as in having a gap) in the middle...it's like he has this right side of the beard and it grows towards the right and he has the left side beard that is growing towards the left. Strange I think. As we were walking out of the hotel's lobby, we were still laughing softly, and suddenly my sister said "Don't laugh because one of these blardy luxurious cars (that are parked at the entrance of the hotel) is his!!"

Yup...it could be very much so. And we figured that the strange beard must be his lucky charm. That is why he didn't shave it off. Hmmm...if so, then I guess I don't have any lucky charm. Because I don't drive a blardy luxurious car.

Royal Golf Tournament

2005-09-06T00:15:00.000+08:00

My Faculty organized a Royal Golf Tournament for the first time ever yesterday (September 4, 2005) at IOI Golf Resort. The Royal was our SPB Yang Di-Pertuan Agong and we had almost 70 participants, many were VIPs from both the corporate and public sector. The feedback that we got from the players and invited guests at luncheon during the prize giving ceremony were very commendable. I think among the so many events that I had helped to coordinate and organized for my Faculty...this Royal Golf Tourney is by far the most challenging. To begin with, the Committee is not a very large one. Secondly, at every meeting we had, there would be more "fights" and arguments and disagreement between the members than actual "working together"! Thirdly, most of our members did not have the confidence that we could pull off this Royal Golf Tourney and everything was "difficult" or "not able to do kinda thing" for them. Fourthly, nearing the date, a few of the members resigned! Fifthly, a few of the members were not able to come to the Golf Tourney for personal reasons. Sixthly, a few of the members who actually turned up at the Tourney had never showed up at any of our meetings before and for the obvious reasons, they were not able to get into the fast action at the Golf Resort.

The Committee checked into Palm Garden, IOI, in the late afternoon on Saturday. We all got these beautiful rooms but had no time to enjoy them :( actually. We had a very nice BBQ dins at the Hotel (but i seriously think that the food there isn't that great). At my table I had all the strong Committee members sitting together and best of all, we were all having a very good laugh. Because we had this very nice and good friend, Zam, who simply kept us laughing and laughing non-stop. He came to hang with us at Palm Garden that night because he wanted to give us some moral support and we were hoping that if we could finish our work early that night, we could have a nice KOK session as a pay-off. Heh. But as it turned out, we finished dins around 10-ish pm, then we went to the Golf Club to pack up the goodies (each player got this very nice ProGolf shoe bag with a very nice Golf T, mineral water, tees, golf balls, and a mini first aid kit). After we finished packing the shoe bags, we had to pack the luncheon goodies. We had very nice goodies that were sponsored by so many companies....(as always!). Heh.

We finished packing up the goodies almost 1am and by that time the KOK was closed. Awww....poor Zam...he was really looking forward to have a singing session with us. He simply love to KOK....Zam is the right hand man to the no 1 big kahuna of HICOM/DRB. Whilst most of the Committee members went up to their rooms to get some rest, me and a few of us had to do somemore work. Sigh....by the time I went back to my room to get some rest, it was almost 3am!

By 5am, I was up getting ready for the big event. We were told by the Palace that the King is a very punctual man. True to the word "punctual", Tuanku arrived SHARP at 7.30am as stated in the itinerary. Wow....with a big number of riders and security officers..etc....there was quite a "show" at 7.30am. The King was all smiles and he looked very cheerful and all ready for a game of golf. We were also told that Tuanku is a very good golfer (with a handicap of 17...he has won a Hole-in-One before. Wow!).

And I was so pleasantly surprised to see Mr J.A.G that morning as we were not expecting to see him. At our last meeting with him, he said that he would be away at another function and that he would be replaced by Kol. Zaki. But there he was! And he played!

The weather was very good for a game of golf. When the golfers were having a fun time hitting the balls, we were so busy and hard at work at the ballroom preparing for the luncheon and prize giving ceremony. Again Tuanku was punctual for luncheon. At 1.45pm sharp he was walking happily into the ballroom.

I had a co-emcee at luncheon (he is a DJ with my University radio) and he got paid whilst I just had a TQVM! As always. Luncheon went very well and the prize giving went very smoothly. We had so many lucky draw prizes up for grabs. Tuanku won 2nd prize for the VIP category. Not bad at all. And I won a free and easy 3D/2N package for 2pax to Jakarta. Not bad at all. What a pay-off aye? And my fave Mr J.A.G won nearest to the line. Not bad at all indeed :)

The event ended around 3-ish pm. But after the farewell of SPB Tuanku, we hang around with most of the guests and players. During the "kelamkabut" of giving out the prizes to the winners of 11th-20th positions (these winners had to collect their prizes at the end of the luncheon so as not to drag the ceremony in the presence of the King), 2 of the prizes got hijacked! Luckily we had prepared for "back up" prizes just in case if we have this sorta thing happening. Not only that, 2 of our Lucky Draw prizes were also hijacked! Geezz.....our Lucky Draw prizes were irresistable actually. So we can't blame the hijackers at all. We had 6 airline tickets for the luckiest people, among other interesting prizes.

Mr J.A.G said that it would be nice if we can hang for Teh Tarik and KOK one day. Now...that would be very nice indeed :) :)

Malaysian J.A.G

2005-09-01T21:08:00.000+08:00

What is it about men in uniforms that hit women the most? Probably the smartness, neatness, disciplines, macho-ness and manly-ness they portray in uniforms, especially white uniforms. I honestly do not know. But nonetheless, I do realize that men in uniforms do look stunning, macho and good looking.

I was with my colleagues all afternoon today on a golf course and we had a meeting with an Air Force officer. At first we were not officially introduced as he had already met most of the members in the group (except me!).As my colleagues assumed that I've met him before, they did not introduce us. After exchanging smiles and "hellos", he apologised to us saying that he did not have an opportunity to change his uniform earlier because he did not want to be late for our meeting. Then all of a sudden, I did not realize that I had uttered something. I said "You look like J.A.G". Then he turned to look at me with this charming brilliant smile and said "Sorry....you said something?". Of course by then I was already blushing. Then I said "Ohh nothing. I just said you look like J.A.G". Then he continued smiling and said "J.A.G?". Then I said..."Ohh...its nothing. No worries." Then we climbed some flights of staircase into the Club House. Then at the lobby, he turned around at some of us and said "J.A.G?" Then a few of us tried to explain to him bla...bla...Then he said "Ohhhhh I see. Tapi tu cerita lama kan?". But none of us commented anything after that. (Me and my big mouth la)

Anyways, we had a very smooth meeting, and we ran through every single detail of the event with him. We visited every room of the Club that we are going to use this weekend and going through the flow of the event. Since I was absent during the first meeting my group had with him, I thought I'd better keep quiet and don't interrupt their discussion. But me being me, I just simply had to give my 2 cents everywhere I went. So there I was giving all the 2 cents I thought were good and to me was in accordance to protocol. I was so so pleased that he agreed with all my 2 cents! Hahaha! On one opinion, I even overruled the Corporate Comm people's advice and decision. Hahahaha. And he agreed with me. Soon he was checking with me on all of our plans and flow of the event. So I ended up being the logistics and layout advisor and he was very happy with all my arrangements of the event. The meeting was extended beyond his appointment with us (probably he was happy with us!). Then he gave me some inside tips on the VVIP of that day (like what he is and all....but they are all very positive personalities of the VVIP).

At the end of the meeting, everyone shook hands with him and when he took my hand, he asked me "You are...???". I was quite speechless for a minute....then I realised he was blushing...and he said "I mean....you are with the group??". Then I introduced my name and said "Yes....I'm bla...bla....bla". And I wanted to say something else to him but what came out was "Err....can I have your business card please?". He said it was in his car at the entrance. So we ushered him to his car and he gave me his business card. (Hehe...wink wink). Then I told him that he still remind me of J.A.G. He looked kinda puzzled I think and then he said "Cerita tu dah tak ada kan?" Then we all corrected him and said "Ada la. Tengok la Astro channel Star World." He said "Ohhhh I see." Then my colleague said "Tapi cerita tu dah merapu dah sekarang ni. Dulu best tapi now dah macam boring je." But I interrupted and said "Yeah...but I STILL think that JAG is very good looking!". Then my colleague said "I think she meant you la tu!!". Hahahaha. We had a laugh. Yup...I better shut up before I get into trouble.

Earlier on in the meeting, he asked who the emcee would be on that day...and everybody pointed at me. I had to say "unfortunately :(". If I can recall correctly, he had asked me no lesser than 3 times "So..you emcee ye?". At one instance, he asked my colleague whose handwriting was it on the faxes he received late at night on Tuesday before Merdeka. They all pointed at me. I said "unfortunately again :(". He gave me that brilliant smile again and said "very nice indeed. I thought it was your handwriting *looking at my colleague*". My colleague said "Tak la...bukan. Nah..my handwriting macam ni....tak boleh baca! Semua doctor punya handwriting teruk kan?".

Anyways, after he left with his driver, my colleague said "smart kan dia?". Quietly I agreed with her :) :). Then she said "Eh...on that day kan...I will introduce you to this man's superior who is even more hunky. He looks like Cuba Gooding Jr in a JAG uniform." Wow....are all the men in uniform as charismatic and charming like him? I think it is just the uniform...that's it...only the uniform...heh.

But it is a very nice feeling that the Malaysian J.A.G shows some professional interest in me. Guess his white J.A.G uniform and my 2 cents have some kind of chemistry :)

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 3)

2005-08-31T05:49:00.000+08:00

Guess there was a gemstones rush in South Africa!! We were hoping that they were diamonds. Hahaha! This is Mineral World at Simon's Town. A gemstone tumbling factory, scratch patch (for 65 rands per bag) and an unusual jewellery and gift shop. We shopped for so many gemstones because they all looked so pretty, gorgeous and dang so colorful :). They are genuine mind you. At the scratch patch you feel like as if you are in some kind of a small cave and the grounds are filled with thousands of colourful different gemstones (like aquamarines, tigers eyes, turquiose, amethyst, and god knows what else because I can't possibly remember all the gemstones names) and you can bring along the scratch patch bag and squat down on the gemstones and choose any stone you want and fill the scratch patch bags. The guy said we didn't have to seal the bags, rather we can fill up the bags above the "zip lock" of the bags for as long as the stones do not fall off! Wow....we had 3 scratch patch bags to fill up.

As you would imagine...like digging for some diamonds or gold, you would "be lost" for hours and hours and hours....Yup....we were scratch patching for hours and hours.....Thought I had enough gemstones to go around among family members and friends. Unfortunately, to the ladies, gemstones are a girl's second best friend (next to diamonds), so 3 scratch patch bags ain't enough :( :(

What captivates me more in South Africa are really not the famous diamonds (don't they all always tell you that if you go to South Africa, don't forget to buy the South African diamonds because they are one of the finest quality diamonds in the world?) Well, I'm not so big on diamonds, but when I saw the Tanzanites...OOooohhh OOoooohhh MMMmmmmmyyyyy....Phew! Phew! Phew! (Fanning meself). HooHoo...Fuyo! Now, ladies, diamonds are out..tanzanites are the way to go babes!

They told me that the tanzanites will go extinct in about 20 years or so. Tanzanites are very very rare, they were just founded not too long ago, and they are far far more superior than diamonds. Thus, they, me ladies...are more expensive than the diamonds. Like the diamonds, tanzanites also have grades. I fell in love with the tanzanites. Zaid (my guide in Cape Town) asked me if I wanted to buy the tanzanites, he can introduce me to his friend who sells them. Yeah right. Huh....I can't afford them (of course I'm not talking about "SIZE DOES NOT MATTER" here :)). So I told Zaid, I'll be back when I strike the Lottery. Hahahaha.

See these two people, Darling and June, so busy working hard at gemstones digging !

Later....Tara.

Nona Maria

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 2)

2005-08-28T17:02:00.000+08:00

If you ever get a chance to go to South Africa, you may not want to miss out on Kruger National Park. A visit there is more than the thousands of words these pictures can paint. You get to see the wildlife on National Discovery channel and Animal Planet, but trust me, it is nuthin' like watching these amazing wildlife 5'-10' in their own natural habitats.

The Kruger National park (KNP) stretches 350km from the Limpopo River in the north to the Sabie River in the south, across two provinces - Limpopo and Mpumalanga. KNP is 2 million hectares in size and is about the size of Wales. Founded in 1898, the KNP is one of the biggest game sanctuaries in the world and contains three distince habitats - the deciduous treed and grassy southern region around Skukuza; the central savannah region around Satara and Olifants camps; and the arid mopane scrubland around Shingwedzi and Punda Maria in the north. The Park is the natural habitat of 147 mammal species, including the BIG 5, over 500 bird species, 330 tree species, 140 reptile species and 49 fish species. It has the largest concentration of birds of prey in the world.

KNP is on the Kalahari Desert and is bordered by Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The best time to visit KNP is during winter months from May to August. A word of caution : KNP is in a malaria zone area and if you decide to go there, you may want to consult your family doctor, get the malaria tablets and take them before you leave for KNP.

We left Capetown very early in the morning (like 6am I think) and the flight on South African Airlines from Capetown to Joberg was 2 hours or slightly longer. When we arrived at Joberg, we were met by Ebrahim (our guide from Joberg) and we travelled by road to KNP from there. It took us about 8 hours to reach Satara camp (with caffein and nicotin breaks along the way. Heh). It was a very scenic journey from Joberg to KNP. You may choose to fly into a nearer airport to KNP if you like but then you would miss out on the scenic journey from Joberg to KNP which I think is such an enjoyable sight.

There are 8 gates that you can enter KNP depending on where you are coming from. We came in through the Paul Kruger Gate (which is 500kms away from Joberg) and from there on, our journey to Satara Camp (another more than 100kms away if I'm not wrong) was simply awesome! We saw so many wildlife along the way. We even saw a huge lion sitting on his fat belly alongside the unpaved dusty road (like 4'-5' away from us) and he was a beautiful animal. He looked like he just ate though. Hehe. We were so engrossed and bewildered by the wildlife we saw on the way that we didn't bother to take some photos or video shots (because none of us were interested to get the camera or video ready...it was too much of a hassle.) Anyways we did not want to miss out on anything ! So nuthin' was documented :(

We arrived at Satara Camp safely (without a scratch). There are 12 camps on KNP that you can choose to stay. Each camp is well equipped with modern facilities. Some even have swimming pools, banks and post office for you to mail out postcards to your friends and make them envious of you! Haha. All camps have got restaurants, cafes, boutiques and souvenir stores selling souvenirs and a bit of groceries. Camping and caravanning facilities are also available for the hard core rough-it-out people. Satara Camp is gated with electrical fences, so we were rest assured that we would wake up the next morning. You may also decide to rent a car form Joberg Airport and travel to KNP. That way, you can enjoy the game drives at your own pace. You can also hop from one camp to another if you like (so with a rented car, you would be more mobile to do more game drives and go to other camps). The Park has 2000km of roads, of which 700kms are tarred. And guess what? From the Thai/Malaysia border to Malaysia/Singapore border, it is only 848kms by road!! And KNP has in total 2000kms of road. No wayyy....

We decided to stay at Satara camp because we wanted to see the wild cats. We are so into the wild cats you know. Satara camp is situated on a savannah and is an ideal habitat for the wild cats. Is is somewhere in the middle of KNP. Within hours of us being at KNP, we already saw the famous BIG 5 !! (the lions, the buffalos, the rhinos, the leopards and the elephants). We were told by Ebrahim (our guide from Joberg) and Zaid (our guide in Capetown) that we were very lucky indeed because many of their tourists who went to KNP came back quite frustrated as they only saw 3 out of 5, if not 4 out of 5. Even the rangers at KNP told us that many people don't get to see the leopards because they are very elusive and a loner. But we saw (believe it or not) 5 lions on 4 different occasions and 2 "elusive" leopards at 2 different occasions. On one game drive we saw two lions feasting on a giraffe carcass and on another game drive we saw a leopard feasting away on a fresh impala on a tree branch with two hyenas waiting at the foot of a tree hoping to share the fresh kill. Leopards usually bring their kills onto a branch to avoid the other animals from "sharing" with them. And because the leopards are loners (they do not travel in packs), they are quite afraid of hyenas who travel in packs. Unfortunately we did not capture the rare encounter on digital camera, but we have the footages on video. Heh. We met these tourists from Oz on one of the game drives and they told us that they have been at KNP a few days already and they never got a chance to see a leopard yet. Hmmm...so i guess we were a lucky lot :) :)

Each Zulu bungalow at Satara Camp has got a BBQ pit for you to bbq anything you fancy. But watch out the animals as they may want to share your BBQ. Our bungalow was so cute and unique (as you can see from the pix above) and we could hear the sounds of the many species of birds and they would come to us quite close hoping to get some food. But we were warned not to feed these animals. There are also bats at Satara Camp and they are kewl because they eat the malaria mozzies. However, we did not see no bat because it was winter then.

The skies at night at Satara Camp is simply out of this world. We spent hours and hours star gazing from our bungalow and on the nite game drives that we took. It was so so peaceful and serene and you don't have to utter a word while enjoying the joys of star gazing. The ranger taught us something about the stars and their names (which i forgot. Hahaha) but we saw the scorpion constellation (whatever!). During one of the nights when we were star gazing, we heard a very loud roar. It was a beautiful sound. And the ranger taught us how we can differentiate a lion's roar from a lioness'. Amazing! That roar was from a lion alright. And he said that we can hear a lion's roar from 1km to 7km away. Wow....We particularly loved the star gazing experiences. it is truly indescribable. Where else can you experience star gazing and hearing a lion roaring away in the middle of a winter night? Of course, it can ONLY...ONLY be in AFRICA.

If we ever return to South Africa, we would love to go to Skukuza Camp next. Skukuza Camp is the largest camp on KNP. It has many more facilities than Satara like swimming pools, TV room, banks and post office. You also can expect to see many families with little tiny tots running around the camp. Maybe some people do not agree with that kinda holiday. So if you would prefer a more quiet and serene place to put yourselves amongst the wildlife, perhaps Satara camp would satisfy you more. When we were there, we hardly saw any kids around. Perhaps 2/3 South African white kids (by the way, if I'm not wrong, kids below 5/6 years old are not allowed to go on a game drive.) Most of the tourists at Satara camp were the "matured" group...like middle aged, semi retirees, you know what I mean. Hehehe. And absolutely quiet and private people.

There are more adventures of South Africa that I would hope to blog. And many more pictures that I hope to upload in my blog. This is Darling's second visit to South Africa and the first for me and June. But darling said that this trip is the best of the best holidays that he ever had. And we couldn't agree more.

I hope you will enjoy the priceless photos I've put in my blog (just to share with you our "wild" experiences in South Africa).

Until later, have a brilliant week ahead.

Tara!!

Nona Maria

Adventures in South Africa - Winter 2005 (Part 1)

2005-08-28T03:05:00.000+08:00

That's me, Darling and June
somewhere in Chapman's Peak (I think heh).
Behind us is Haut Bay, the seals colony.
We were told that the Becks have got a huge mansion
somewhere nearby Haut Bay. Hmmmm......interesting fact.
We had the best of the best holidays in South Africa
and it could not be better.
Like I said.....South Africa, A Place to Love :)

Very cute and adorable and look absolutely like an angel.
Don't be fooled....!! It's not a domestic cat (for sure).
Her name's Peaches and she's only 1 year old and totally wild!

A PLACE TO LOVE....
I fell in love with South Africa. Anyone will.....
It is an unbelievably amazing and a beautiful place.
A paradise indeed.
It is not easy to forget Capetown. See for yourself!!

Unbelievable....!! It makes any heart stop beating.

Amazing experience. It can ONLY be in Africa !!

Wonder how many thousands of words this picture paints.

Promoting Oneself :)

2005-03-28T22:57:00.000+08:00

I don't know how many of you realise that in the government sector, the onus is on each and everyone of them to self-promote themselves in their career because no one else would do that job for them. I find this very very strange, unacceptable, out-of-my-norm, and definitely out-of-my-box!! I spent like what 17-18 years in the private sector and promotion exercises, from where i came from, is definitely going to come from your superiors who would recommend you (based on your appraisals and merits etc) to the Management (via HRD) that you deserved a raise and a promotion. Yes? But rather the opposite in the government sector. It's like if you "feel" you deserve to be promoted then you apply and promote yourself. But of course, the decision to agree or disagree with you still come from the Management. But the matter of the fact is that, you nominate yourself to be included in the promotion exercise. And we have one promotion exercise every year. If you miss the boat, try not to miss it again next year.

Anyways, there is one very interesting notice ad in our main office at the Faculty. I've noticed the ad since last week but i wasn't interested in it at all and of course i paid no attention to it. But then, just now a male colleague of mine was reading it and so we sort of chatted for a bit about the ad. He said that this promotion exercise is for the position of DM52, which is newly-created, and there are no takers for it so far simply because it is a brand new position just created for us. He said that staff from DM45 and DM46 can apply for DM52 before they can apply for DM54 (which is Associate Professorship). Hmmmm....now it gives me a thought :) Am i qualified to apply for DM52 (i am now at DM46, which is a scale higher than DM45)?? So i asked him what the qualifying criteria are so that i can evaluate myself to see if i am qualified. I dont want to be SS la you know...SYOK SENDIRI gitu!!!!

But there are no criteria written on the notice ad!! Heyy...so how do i know if i'm eligible or not. Then he said...just submit your application (oh btw, it's just a single page application form) and a resume to go with it and just submit. Then don't think about it until the list of successful applicants are pinned up at the notice board, which will prolly come out in 6 months or so. Hehehe.

When i had that pleasant "up close and personal" encounter with my ex at the conference, he told me why don't i apply for Associate Professorship. And i yelled "WHAT??" almost as fast as the lightning! Am i mad or is he insane to suggest it to me. He said, why not because I've a whole lifetime experience behind me (coming from the industry) and i've already contributed some good number of years to the Faculty. I said "yea right..i dont have a PhD yet remember?" But he said...who says one need to have a PhD to ask for an Associate Professorship. Well...my sister would be one to protest highly cus she worked her ass off to get her PhD :)

Well, whatever it is, I'm not half as crazy as my ex to ask for an AP (muahahahahha!!)...but prolly i'm more sane to apply for this DM52. Heh.

Wish me luck :):):). The deadline is April 8. So, i would need to get that single sheet application form and beef up my resume *grinning*.

Have a happening and beautiful tuesday people :)

Tara!

Sumthin' Scarry Mary

2005-03-28T01:45:00.000+08:00

I've got some scarry stories to relate :(

A month ago, a colleague of mine went home for lunch and saw a big commotion at her next door neighbor's house. Wondering and curioused with what was going on, she dropped by and saw her neighbor in a hysteria manner. An incident happened not too long before that at her neighbor's house. Around mid morning, three Indian men (one of them was wearing a kopiah implying that he may be Indian Muslim) came to the house and rang the door bell. One of the three men carried a big box all nicely wrapped up in a gift wrapper and all walked towards the front entrance. He said that he was delivering a present to the maam of the house (who happens to be a Datin) upon approaching the grilled door. Then the Datin's 9 year old son called out to his mother who happened to be in the kitchen that there was a delivery for her. Then she told her son to open the door. He did. And as the Datin came out of the kitchen towards the living area, the three men held her, gagged her and tied her to a chair. Then they went upstairs to one of the bedrooms and tied the Datin's older son (apparently they seemed to know how many people were at home at that time. The older boy was almost 20). Then they dragged the 9 year old boy out of the house and left. They never received a call for ransom or heard any news of their son's whereabouts. They live in a very simple, low key double storey house (next neighborhood to where i live actually) and apparently they also lead a very down-to-earth lifestyle. I can't start to imagine what and how the Datin is feeling and handling all these. It is un-imaginable, un-thinkable to think something like that to happen to any of us. Any mother would go mad and lose her sanity over something like that. But how do we know if something like that will happen to us? We don't know. And how do we stop it? We also don't have the answers for that.

Today, i learned another incident. My son's Physics tutor came for a class this morning and he related to me another scarry story. Only last nite, some intruders were trying to rob his parents-in-law's house. They (only 3 of them)live in a big bungalow and at about 1.30am his mom-in-law heard some noises outside and then she woke up and switched on some lights, only to scare off the intruders while they were busy at work. By then, they have already managed to lift up the entire front gate from its sides!! Its like there was no more front gate!! Imagine if you are living all alone and you hear some noices downstairs. What do you do? I remember "Panic Room". Do you remember? I think we all should do like what Jodie Foster did. Build a strong room, fully digitalised, have CCTVs all over the entire house and have direct connectivity to the nearest Police Station!! And don't forget to also have a mini refrigerator inside the strong room and more importantly don't forget to stack the mini fridge with fresh food and drinks. You never know when you will be needing the strong room. Hahaha.

And not too long ago, my sister who lives in USJ3 told me that she was driving home one afternoon and she saw her neighbor of some few houses down the road, running frantically shouting out that she had just been robbed! In broad daylight! And she had a huge greyhound guarding the front yard of her house. But the problem was that her house was an intermediate lot and as the greyhound was doing a good job guarding the frontyard, he could not do just as good a job guarding the backyard. And the thieves came in from the backyard, for obvious reasons.

And on Saturday nite, while we were coming home to Shah Alam from the MPO, we got caught in a rather bad traffic congestion at Jln Sultan Ismail. Apparently the traffic lights decided to go bonkers and caused some bad traffic jam. And people being people, they are so easy to lose control of their patience. Perhaps the high spirits are to be blamed. Perhaps the anxiety of a typical Saturday nite in downtown is also another thing to be blamed. And they started to honk at each other...even knowingly that the traffic lights had gone bonkers! They were all soo BADDD and annoying!! And i told June that incident like this can easily increase the anger of some people and make them go wild or lose control and then road-bully other motorists that can lead to killing motorists on the road. Probably the extra content of "spirits" make them lose control and all and become road bullies. So, either you are at home or on the road, there is no guarantee that you are totally safe....everywhere is scarry and has a wicked story to tell :(

So, never fail to pray to Allah SWT to protect and keep us, our children, our families and friends all safe and happy. But even with all the prayers, our heart can never be rest assured as we can never know isn't it. I guess because of that, we will continue and continue and continue to pray and will never stop :)

Please keep your families safe and sound.

Have a beautiful week ahead guys and gals :) :) :)

Tara.....