homemade italian meatball spagetti

This year March, I hosted a mat salleh friend from Oregan. He sent his 'secret' Italian meatball spagetti' to me, tonight I tried....it tasted so well , awesome .... most important , it's so easy to prepare. Put all in slow cooker , then masak aje. I like it.

Today in office , my customer said to me, she wants to introduce mat salleh to me. Then she stopped and repeated "Mat Salleh ni nama dia Mat Salleh, bukan 'mat salleh' orang asing tu' .....gosh, I had a good laugh about this..... hmm, now I realize 'Mat Salleh' is a legitimate bahasa name eh... Malay version nickname the caucasion mat salleh, the chinese labelled them 'ang mou' which literally means 'bulu merah'. The other day , someone also told me a chinese who doesn't speak/know chinese is labelled as 'banana' ....Then an indian who doesn't know how to speak indian is labelled 'coconut' as in the old coconut - brown color outside, inside white :P

Practical training @ NASOM

NASOM stands for National Autism Society of Malaysia. My diploma requires the practical training with the special chilren centers, which is a good idea, I get to visit the various centers and observe the different children. Today , went to kuchai lama's NASOM center. The teachers are dedicated, kind and nice. It is a vocational center - means the autism children ( young adults ) > 14 years old attend the vocational class from 8am to 3pm. They can do simple work such as inserting the packets of ketchup and chili sauce, tissue into the KFC plastic bag, seal them. Each of them have their table , their work system setup in order from left to right. The kids know the tasks in sequence, they can perform their tasks well. I took a picture of them. I pray that more and more companies will reach out and give them the work, let them have the chance to earn a small living. CSR (Corporate Social Responsiblities) is very important here, wish more kind hearted, generous businessman/woman will come forward and help the needed folks....

20s, 30s, 40s .....

Bahija is learning psychology now , quite interesting, but confusing and blur as well with all those terminology and theories , too deep for me... today's topic is on more on the 'financial' side.. when I was in the 20s , graduated from Uni , paid car instalments, paid taxes , gradually accumulated the savings .... worked very hard. Then I set a personal goal for myself , sth I need to achieve when I reach 30. I achieved it. After crossing 30s, I slowed down tremendously on my wealth accumulation. I shifted my focus on other things which are not related to 'finance' - Praise God !... in my early 30s, I always wanted to aim for 'debt-free' ..... now reaching 40s, I guess if I set a goal of 'debt-free', I may be able to achieve that easily. But at this stage now, my personal review is that I need to correct the statement, it's not 'debt-free', it should be 'financially-independent' - it's a huge differences betweeen the 2. Last time, I always dumped my extra cash into housing loan ( some said I'm a steady low risk conventioner investor la - the nicer term). Looking back , at the rate of inflation, at the rate of increased cost of living, at the rate of my age and the remaining active years - 'financial independent' is a dream :) - how much is needed, that is very subjective , depends on the individual's need and desires. All I can say now is that , it is quite 'cool' relaxing to be debt-free too .... perhaps , I can slowly acquire more skills and work on the dream goal la.... no worry !

blessed dinner ....

Mah Lou is back in town, tonite NLK organized a dinner, I went - thinking would it turn out boring for me 'again' ???? We went to a seafood restaurant, just 4 of us , with Bootidelicious as well. To my surprise, we had good time getting updates from each other, followed by many parenting discussions and tips. It's multi-ways communications , every one participate - cool ! Oh , on top of that, I really treasure the blessing , something that I've not received for many many many years .... Si Mah Lou received his little increment today and he belanja us the yummy seafood dinner , till we couldn't finish the dishes and wasted food - bad la ... What I missed is not the 'free meal' , I miss the joy of having friends makan together, 'help' celebrate the increment or promotion aje :) .... I said to Mah Lou - May he continues to receive more increments or promotions !!! Ringgit missed the fun and free meal :P ...