Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Countdown 1

Countdown 1 has stopped. In a few hours, my girlfriends and I will be on our way to Jakarta. It's 2.15am and I am still awake. Have not managed to sleep yet. There are still a few things I need to finish before I go. Ahhh...what a life.

Can't wait to get there and chill out.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Sugar & Caffeine Stress Buster


I wonder what would the damage be to my waist line after this. The mounting stress has led me to having some mocha nut chocolate chip cookies and overflowing of caffeine supplies.

Please people...Let's wrap up!!

Sleepy, tired and bored. Here I am in this meeting. No signs of it coming to an end yet. If only "these people" can decide what they want... until they do, i'll continue entertaining myself blogging on my n95.

Mind Your Grammar

During my years of teaching the English Language I have come across and heard countless of glaring and at times very embarrassing errors made by my students. Amongst students of the different disciplines, you could always leave it to the engineering kids to come up with the most classic and creative blunders. At times, I often wondered if they ever knew the severity of the mistakes they made.

The most common one would be the confusion of the singular and plural object verb agreement. Despite going through repetitious explanation and exercises on grammar rules and usage, these kids would happily utter sentences like these.

“You IS my course mate. We study together.” Gosh, as an English teacher, when hearing such an utterance, you wouldn't know how to react. Should I scream or should I weep?? All the effort in teaching them kids to speak correctly had gone down the drain. And some of these kids were already in semester three, meaning they have gone through 3 semesters of English programs, not counting the 11 years of learning English in school.

The other classic one is the confusion of the verbs in the past tense. As such, the emergence of these somewhat “creative” and deplorable, grammatically incorrect sentences would have many of our jaws dropping. Thus, you’d hear students saying “goed” as the past tense of “go” and “sitted” for “sit. One very smart student of mine even said that the past tense of “put” was “putted. So, how on earth could a teacher move on to teach the language from here?

I guess the situation now is no better from those teaching days of mine. That day on my flight to Kota Kinabalu I overheard the stewardess saying this, “Excuse me sir, would you like A water?” Now, hang on a sec….since when are we able to count water??? You could count the glass, bottles or even bucket, but water as how it is formed is a definite uncountable noun. I felt a sudden urge wanting to pull her one side and correct her mistake. Unfortunately, she was very busy attending to the passengers and I felt it wasn’t proper to make a big fuss over her grammar mistakes. On other instances, I heard her making the same mistake over and over again. By then I was so annoyed with her constant abuse of the language. There was just one last thing to do - snooze off.

True enough, when I woke up minutes later, it was surely the better way of ignoring the whole incident, in a less stressfull manner.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

3G at Starbucks


3G pre jakarta chilling out session at starbucks sek 9 shah alam.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Gaya Street - look see look see


I'm posting tis entry frm Gaya Street KK. Nothing much to get frm here. Lots of pearls & crystals. Don't knw if thy are genuine. Oh by the way, Maxis 3G works fine here.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Still in KK - Kota Kinabalu that is


I'm still in KK. Now attending the closing ceremony of our camp program here. Still hanging in despite the lack of sleep the past few days. Thank god for last nite's break loose session. Release tension beb! Tak ingat ber-poco-poco, joget lambak & even joint d group in a sumazao dance. Lupa jap all deadlines... All in all i'm glad that i'm here.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I need Sleep


I'm now at KLIA waiting for my flight to kota kinabalu. Dead tired and totatly deprived of sleep. Hope to doze off once onboard. Nwt 2 days agenda will be packed wit meetings. Urrghh...what a life!!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

ABE 40+++++++ Today

When it comes to numbers 10 and 11, I am very likely to confuse them. Same goes with the months of June and July. I have many times confused friends' birthdays if they fall on any of these two months. Once I sent a text message to a friend to wish her Happy Birthday in July when in actual fact her birthday was in June. Just imagine a whole month late!! Well, it's better late than never I guess.

And today I've done it again. I have "conveniently" confused ABE's birthday. It actually falls on 10th July and I confidently thought it was on the 11th July. How could I?? It is actually unspeakably unforgivable. If I hadn't picked up my phone last night to set my alarm, I would have definitely missed his birthday today.

Nasib baik I managed to wish him this morning before he left for work. And after work I stopped by to get him a cake.

Presents? Up till this moment I haven't the slightest hint on what to get him. Looks like I'll be present hunting this weekend. This is one assignment which has got to be done with extra caution. Silap-silap bershopping untuk diri sendiri jadik nyer.....

A quote from Abraham Lincoln

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

So to ABE, Happy Birthday to U.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Surau That Way ------>

I like it that most of the R&R areas along the North South Highway have been redesigned and refurbished for better confort of the travelers. When I travel up North I'd usually stop at the Tapah R&R for a quick bite, if I don't have much time to spare. And if I am not so much in a rush, I'd go for the curry mee in one of the stalls. Real nice and tasty plus not too creamy. Just how I like my curry mee. Unlike those yang berenang-renang minyak nyer tu, though I know ramai yg suka curry mee gini. Anyway, it boils down to your preferance lah kan. No right or wrong to it. Just have to be careful with the cholesterol intake...

Well, that's my snippet of the Tapah R&R heading North.

On my way back to KL, again, my stop for some refreshments would be the South bound Tapah R&R. The main attraction here is the guava and jambu stalls. I have no particular stall that I go to. My guess is, most of the fruit come from the same orchard. The prices are also the same. So, I'd just do my usual Eenie-Meenie-Miney-Moe and hope to walk into a good stall.

And that's my liking of the South bound Tapah R&R.

However, what I want to share here has nothing to do with the fruit or food stalls. It's the surau that I want to talk about. During my last trip to Penang, on my way back to KL, I stopped at the South Bound Tapah R&R for solat and toilet break. The R&R now has a new Surau and it is much more comfortable than the previous one. It is spacious and airy. I like this as it doesn't give me that claustrophobic feeling as some suraus do.

The surau is clean as I could see the cleaners going in and out to mop the floors. What attracts me most is the ablution area. Again, the area is spacious and it gives one the ambience as if you are at one of those Balinese water fountains. It wasn't smelly or anything and check this out, when you step on the floors, it didn't feel like you were going to slip and fall (coz berlendir & not cleaned properly...eeyeww). Baru lah semangat and dapat lah the khusyuk and tawadduk during prayers.

Unfortunately, even with such good facilities, I noticed that there were still folks who used the toilet to take their ablution. Haiya...toilet tu kan tak tau kebersihan nyer. Just go to the surau lah to do what you need to do to prepare for prayers. What irks me even more is when people lift up their feet and wash them in the sink when taking their ablution. If the facilities are not available, yes I can understand it. Ni such a nice and comfy place is ready for use. Takk....nak gi jugak do "it" in the toilets.

I told the ladies at the R&R that day about the surau and its facilities. Told them, "Kat hujung sana ader surau besar, bersih and ader tempat wuduk. Tak usah ambik wuduk kat toilet." I meant to share with them what I know. But my good intention was not well received. Ader plak one makcik ni replied back, "Sama je. Kat sini ader air. Senang nak wuduk." Gosh....in the toilet there's water, of course. But the issue here is the cleanliness and how we are to avoid perkara-perkara najis into solat.

Haiya,I didn't want to say much lah. I am no Uztazah. Pakai tudung pun tudung semi pro je. Some of them were as old as my Mom. So siapa lah I ni nak pandai-pandai ajar them. After all they all yg dulu makan garam than me kan. Ok lah, my dear mak ciks, have it your way lah. If you must do "it" in the toilet, it's your choice. Me no more say anything after this.

My point is, why is it so difficult to accept something if it's for the good of oneself? That..I really don't understand. Anyway, no love lost lah between the makciks and I. I was just sharing. Tak nak tak pe...Aiman tak kisah!!!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

It works!!

Yezza it works!! We are somewhre near klia already. And d pic is my kerepek pisang munchies in d car. Isshh mcmane tak gemuks...

Blogging frm Mobile


We are on our way bck to mom's place in sban. Tot i'd try posting somethng frm my n95. Plus i wanna chck the 3G coverage along d hway. Let's see if it works..

Saturday, July 5, 2008

(Extended) Club Members

After the stretch of hectic days in the office, I was really looking forward to the weekend. There were no special plans made. I just wanted to relax and perhaps catch up with my sleep. Ohh..my much needed beauty sleep. Iyer lah kan bila dah 40 something and counting ni, some extra work needs to be done in the "beauty" department..heh..heh.

I guess I am one of those blessed people who has a super doper bibik who practically runs the home front for me. And because of that, I have no worries of dirty laundry, breakfast or who's going to scrub the kids school shoes. I could count on bibik to kawtim everything. Jadik nyer bila dah no worries...apalagi, after Subuh, I continued my dozing off till almost 10am. Tu dia...qada tidor lah kata kan!! The rest of the day was spent lazing around in the house. Had lunch, did some reading and dozed off again till Asar (told you..I am such a sleepy head on weekends).

Isshhh...ni tak boleh jadi ni. Dok nak terlelap je. Since it was such a bright day outside, I figured it would be good to head to the club and do some laps in the pool. There were already lots of people in the pool when I got there. The situation was different from my usual swim on weekdays. The pool was practically mine. Tak pe lah I said to myself. I must not be selfish. These other folks are also members of the club. They too have rights to use the club facilities just like me.


The view of the pool (after it was closed this afternoon)

I did my usual 20 laps of breast stroke followed by a few extra laps of free style. It was kinda difficult to keep focused coz there were others swimming criss crossing in the pool. There was even one guy, complete in his track suit and t-shirt walking around in the pool. Hey, whatever happened to proper dresscode in the pool?? I noticed not many people observe this anymore. Selamba je pakai apa-apa suka in the pool. Hai..hati dah hangat skit dah ni!!


The sauna - behind the wooden door

The shower room - just across tha sauna

Once I was done with my swim, I headed to the sauna. Spent a good 30 minutes in there. However, towards the end of sauna time, came in this little girl with the maid. I seriously thought that they wanted to sweat it out in the hot room. To my surprise, the maid then started putting on the girl's clothes. Hah?? After shower, pakai baju dalam sauna?? Ni mana pulak punyer ajaran sesat nih?? Dalam hati I was as hangat as the sauna dah.

The girl was really a pain. She kept on walking in out of the sauna. I gave her one irritated look and luckily she got the hint. She then left the sauna. Fuhhh...good riddance. Five minutes later came in another girl and the same maid. Again the same ritual was repeated. Lepas shower, pakai baju in the shower too. Waduh, waduh....gue udah ngak bole tahan ini. I just had to ask these weird people lah. What on earth do they think they are doing? And they were irritating me like crazy. The maid didn't answer me when I asked her why she must come into the sauna to put on the children's clothes. Then I heard some commotion from the shower room outside. It was the maid's employer asking her why the girls did not have their clothes in the sauna. I heard the maid said, "Ada orang di dalam." Yes, memang ada orang di dalam and dah nak terbakar dah ni with all your gelagat.

When my 30 minutes was up, I emerged from the sauna. Next would be to hit the shower. When I was about to step into the shower, there was again another commotion. The employer, the maid and the grandmother. Hah? What? There are more of them? Wei...apa ni? Gi club siap bawak the entire clan!! If my memory serves me well, the club offers membership to only individuals. We are allowed to bring children aged below 12 to use the pool. Bila pulak lah extended to maids, grandmothers and what-have-yous?? Now, I am really sakit hati already. I must remember to have a quick talk with the club personnels on this matter later on.

I thought everything was all over with the family. Tak....ada lagi!! After I finished taking my shower, the maid was about the bathe in the next shower to mine. And you know what happened? The moment the maid stepped into the shower, one of the girls whom she was taking care pushed the shower door and insisted to watch the maid bathe!!!! My eyes almost popped out. There was the maid clad in her towel and this 8 or 9 year old girl was at the door wanting to see the maid wash herself!!! The maid pleeded continuously for the girl to close the door so that she could continue what she was doing privately. But the girl didn't want to budge. Gosh...rasa macam nak lepuk je the girl. Not wanting to be in the scene any longer, I walked away disgustedly.

So much for wanting to have a good work out in rest and relaxed environment huh? I ended up more stressed in the end. What a turn it had been from how I started my day. No thanks to some club members - extended members that is.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Yes, No or I Don't Know?

Boy, we have such big time loosers in the country, don't we? I say this because there are people out there who can't tell the difference between a "yea" and a "nay". Or perhaps they just "don't know". Perhaps they are just pretending. Perhaps they are waiting for their big cuts. Perhaps they are just plain STUPID.

The last 24 hours has been pretty confusing. One statutary declaration after the other. Then came the police reports and next was the denying. And followed by the rumours. I really can't keep up anymore. It is so disgusting watching the news the last couple of days.

Don't any of the leaders see it? We have a country to run. We are a developed nation that has to continue developing and continue earning good strikes in the eyes of the world. We cannot afford to freeze everything just because one or two or three guys out there is/are up to no good.

I'm fed up. I'm jelak. Please stop all these bickering and finger pointing. I really, really want to move on. I wonder how long will this prolong coz' I do wanna get on with life in this beautiful country (or should I start looking out for any islands up for sale?).

4th of July - Happy Independance Day

Happy Independance Day!! What Independance?? Here in BolehLand, is there any? Maybe in name but in actual essence of it, do we have it?

I found this from a blog somewhere. The list is longer actually but I'd just list out the ones I feel most apt.

All these PRESSURE that we are put under is making me morbidly SICK of:

The Direction This Country Is Being Led Into.
The Rampant Corruption
The Ease With Which People Are Bought and Sold
The Failure of the BN to Admit That People Have No More Need of Them
The Sinful Wastages
The Blatant Bailouts of Failed Government Corporations
The Flippant Flip Flops
The Enslavement of the Rakyat Through these ACTS!

Lighter Side of "So Do Mee"

There's just so much of this word "So Do Mee" being said in the past few days. Whilst most of them are so intriguingly disgusting, I have this one funny (at least to me lah eh..) story I'd like to share here. Believe me, it's nothing like those you read or hear anywhere else.

When Faris was young I enrolled him into the Yamaha JMC (Junior Music Class) program. A music lesson for young children where parents sit in the class together with their youngens.
Children learn to play the simple musical pieces and at the same time learn solfeges. I guess it's through solfege learning that the children understand the musical notes better.

The solfeges would sound this way..
"Do So Do, So Fah Me Re, Do So Do" or anything of the Do Re Me combination.

In the past few days, the infamous "So Do Me" word is back again. I can't help but grin (and at the same time feeling furious) to myself when I hear this "So Do Me" word being obliviously mentioned by folks on the street.

No thanks to this 23 year old, drop out (and still got the guts to seek for scholarship) who's trying to attract cheap thrill and attention via his a police report of a misconduct of a political leader.

Thank God "So Do Me" didn't hit the street those days when Faris was in JMC. Otherwise, I can't imagine the overwhelming questions asked about the word. And I'm sure parents would have to explain with great pains the meaning of "So Do Me". Can't imagine the examples and analogy we'd have to site to give the somewhat correct meaning of the godforsaken word.

Imagine the faces of the parents if their child has to recite such a solfege.

"So Do Me. So Do Me. So Do Me....Me Me Me" (ending it with a high note...heh..hehe..hehe)

Boy...wasn't I fortunate back then huh!!! Otherwise apa lah yang nak di-explain apa kat budak-budak kenit lepas solfege recital they all...