anniversary ....

April Fool day is meaningful for me ...it's the day I entered into the long hectic non-fun working life :) .... today mark my 14th anniversary :) , greatful that I am still able to earn a living , have a job to support my needs. Happy 14th Anniversary to Bahija , may I continue to march forward and continue to learn, to be excited of new things which come along my life !

AA-Hangzhou-Shanghai

End of Jan, I went to Hangzhou , China by Air Asia ( AA). AA doesn't fly to Shanghai airport, the nearest is Hangzhou ( HZ ) - which is 1 hour away from Shanghai (SH) by bus without traffic jam. The reality is usually with traffic jam , and it takes > 3.5 hours. There is a speed train from HZ to SH which takes about 45 mins.

AA lands in HZ Xiaoshan International Airport, AA links with the local bus operator, they setup a buse service for all AA passenger directly from that airport, we can buy the bus ticket from the AA flight attendants. The ticket is Rm45 or RMB 100 / one way. It stops at Shanghai Huangpu Bus Station. Taking this bus, we don't have to worry much, as this bus will depart 45 mins after AA flight is landed. So if AA delays , the bus also wait ... the cons is bus will take > 3.5 hours to reach SH. When we arrive at SH Huangpu Bus station, just walk out of the station - there is a small quiet lane ( at of Jan 30, there is no signboard which said 'metro station' - so ask the people around for the entrance of metro station ) which lead us to the metro station undergroud, go in - grab the metro ticket - and we can travel to wherever we need to go in SH.

AA bus schedule fr HZ to SH :-
Mon, Wed, Fri - 2:15 pm , Tue, Sat - 11:10 pm

AA bus schedule fr SH to HZ :-
Mon, Wed, Fri - 8:15 am , Tue , Sat - 7:15 pm

** the bus schedule works hand in hand with AA flights , so schedule will change if the flight time is changed ..

Likewise, if you want to take speed train to SH, then you need to take a cab to HZ downtown train station to board the train, there is a cab fees involved ( I am not sure how much is that ).

kiasu-ism

lately, my spy always smsed and updated me on sth ... apa tu ?? a trade secret ? a secret affair ??? none of the above ...just the euro currency exchange rate :) .... 2008 June, I went to Europe - that was the most expensive trip that I've sacrificed in my record. Firstly, I used 2 weeks of my annual leaves , if I didn't use those leaves, those days could be converted into thousands of ringgit cash when I left In-Kei. I also bought last minute full priced air ticket from KL to Amsterdam. On top of that , the Euro rate was at 5.10 - 5.20 - Gosh ...almost all the items I shopped from Europe that time was pricy and some of the items were cheaper if I were to buy in Msia, coz my exchange rate was very high. Then again, the sayings of no pain - no gain , seize the opportunity when it comes are true, I experienced the last chance of contiki trip with sanguine, thoroughly enjoyed the fun moments we had together. Looking forward, I doubt we could ever do this again.....

back to currecy exchange, for the past 1 week , euro exchage rate was 4.57 , 4.56, 4.55, 4.52 today the cheapest rate so far was 4.50 , it had dropped to 10 mths record low. The pound is also dropping to 5.06 today.

After the pain of 5.10 - 5.20 in 2008 , In 2010 - Bahija practising kiasu-ism, I keep changing the euro at the lower prices ... eg some at 4.63, some at 4.57 etc etc , I average the risk - hahaha. Now knowing pound is close to 5, I am going to get some pounds too , as London is always one of the place I wanted to visit - planned 3 times, didn't make it as it's way too expensive - plus wrong timing .... Can I sapu London this year ? Hmm, very unlikely - but who knows , anything can happen , just a bit of 'kiasu' mentality - guess I can Just Do It ! muahahaha....

my sweety turned 100k ...

March 18, 2010 at 11:10 pm, right when I arrived home , my sweety car mileage meter turned from 99,999 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers. Congrats and Bravo to my sweety , for serving me well so far, I celebrated with her tonight....very 'kiew' , I have been monitoring the meter for this week , kept my camera inside my car, just to capture that moment when it turned to 6 digits.... and that moment actually happened when I arrived on the dot at home :) , see la, my sweety is such an adorable servant. She's born 2003 , when I bought her in 2008 end Sept, she had 56,750 kilometers. Average she only put on 11,350 kilometers yearly. From end of sept 2008 to march 2010 , that's only 16 mths, I've already drove > 40,000 kilometers ...... I'm a slave driver yeah :)

panda

Thailand has its own pandas. the baby panda was born last year. The picture here is the adult panda , they live like king, with many servants taking care of them. Their home is like a huge stadium , covered with air-condition. Being a panda is not a bad idea lah. This picture here showed that the panda was sitting on the wooden chair and eating , enjoying the bamboo .... very cute. When I saw him, I just thought of my teddy bear back home...haaaa

The ChiangMai zoo and acquarium is worth a visit - they are far better than ours .....

family trip to ChiangMai

Bahija went for a family trip to ChiangMai last weekend .... ChiangMai is quite an interesting place to visit. We went to Golden Triangle - crossed boarder to Laos and Burma . We also visited the different tribes from Myammar, Burma or Laos ...now they stayed in Thailand as they are the tourists 'hunting items' .... about 30 mins drive from the city of ChiangMai , the Thai government relocated a small group of Karen tribe aka the long neck tribe , from Thai boarder to this place , it's just a super duper small village with a few bamboo houses .... the karen tribes stayed there , they are to show face themselves, selling some tourist products. We, the tourists paid entrance fees to visit them, then we get to take photos with them , and in return, most of them will asked us to buy things from them .... I actually spent quite some money on different souvenirs from them ( which was way overly priced ) ....the young girl at the age of 2 started to wear the heavy brass ring , the rings will be increased as they age .... they sleep , shower, live with the rings....they are super heavy. very kelian to see them wearing the heavy rings around their neck , they cannot turn their neck nor can they nod their heads.... interesting !!

As usual, the Lord blesses me with good favor, I didn't receive any escalation on work issues during my vacation overseas. The next day when I arrived home until today - I was busy solving various issues, happy that I've enjoyed the trip peacefully :)

dinner with friends

my friend organized a blind date for me , so I went and met the candidate.....I enjoyed the dinner, the company...then the friends left us , tinggal me and him, oh oh - I panicked , what to talk leh, luckily it's late , the restaurant started to switch off one light, so we had good excuse to go home :P ..... I guess a lot of my friends will say that I am way too picky, I want to say no , and I hope I am right lor. Those who found the other half and happily married, are those super lucky folks lor... some how Bahija hasn't receive that kind of luck yet ... for this new friend, he is very elder than I am , his era is different than mine. I don't know if we will click or not, right now, I also don't know what to do .... soon , friends will knock on my door chasing for updates and feedback, may be the new friend will also follow up .... at this moment, I am sort of 'fan' , I am not in 'sweet moment' hoping that he will call and ask him out lor ....aiiii , life is complicated eh ....

p/s : may be I need to go attend relationship counseling :(

Hyperactive .....

We always read about the bad things , the horrible things done by the mat rempit....rupa-rupanya all of them are with ADHD. What is ADHD ? ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The experts said sometimes it is very hard to differentiate the normal children and the ADHD children , as thesedays, normal children also can be very hyper...it's challenging to diagnose and confirm a kid with ADHD. We see the result of the ADHD children who weren't intervened, when they become adult, they are like mat rempit, did things wrong yet they didn't realized, do not know about the bad consequences etc etc .... my lecturer feels sad for them.
Bahija is now clue-less liow, learnt many theories , many diff types of learning disabilities ...theory is always theory .... when we are to deal with the children , everyone is different and every time with them is different too , don't know what to expert out of them. Teacher has to be creative in teaching , gosh , that 'creativity' is something I don't really have lor - heeee.... okie la , gtg zzzz, tomorrow kena wake up early go special kid ministry ...

Happy Holidays & Xin Nian Kuai Ler !!

Hi Hi all ..... hipppie , it's TGIF and we are off for Chinese New Year :) .... I am so looking forward to the break. Mum and sister will be going to Egypt, I will stay home one week to take care of teddy bear....that will be a great time for me to catch up with sleep, rest, class assignment and reseach, closing of my ledger and accounting etc etc .... see, one week break - still tak cukup punya , nevertheless, better than none.

This year, I received my first Tiger ang pow from a tiger leh, hehehe...Sanguine Queen gave me an angpow. I also wanted to thank Sanguine Queen for the free shipment of my windows 7. During the CNY break, I also need to upgrade my PC from vista to windows 7 , and test the customer tools , if all OK , then I can safely migrate my notebook , I'm not vista fan la , vista really kuku one ...aiii , asyik closed my windows - gila betul !

Oh, a friend from US came back with 2 kids , I can't wait to meet them.

To all my readers, Safe journey to wherever you are going , Happy Holidays , Happy Blessed Healthy Tiger Year :) ...

entrepreneur experience ....

Last 2 days , went to attend entrepreneur training. It's interesting as in learning new things, being entrepreneur is very different than being in a 9 to 5 corporate job. It's a lot a lot a lot of work , a lot a lot of hard work too, not easy to be one. Bahija is happy that she has the opportunity to attend the classes, to learn something new from the industry folks .... all these are made possible because of my sanguine queen :) , sanguine queen is a dynamic, futuristic person, her active brain is very business minded. To me , she is destined to be a good entrepreneur. I tag along with her , learning happily ...hope we'll make it a fruitful journey.

the best color for a classroom or school

Hi Hi .... today I am going to share with you the best color to motivate students or someone to focus on study, that means this color is best for classroom or school or study room .... any guesses ? I guessed green and salah. My teacher said the research done revealed that 'Peach' or 'Pink' color are the color which motivate and encourage positive learning.... No wonder la , these days the public schools in Msia - most of them are painted in pink. Even one of the NASOM center ( NASOM is the center for Autism children ) is painted in pink.

Fellow readers, if you are thinking how to encourage and motivate your children to study more, to be able to focus more - then try paint the room in peach or pink yea :)

my early primary school era....

I was born in the 70's .... early 70s - could be the era of kindergarden being introduced in my country. My parent didn't send me to kindergarden , no money and mum didn't know too ... When I went to standard one , all I could remembered was - teacher kept scolding me, every day I never failed standing in front of the classroom - hands carried the textbook - it's like a punishment for not knowing things or not doing the homework. One time, my standard one teacher met my mother, I was standing next to mum... that time I was 7 yrs old, today I'm 37 yrs old , yet I could rememberd her statement well : "Mrs, your daughter is hopelss, very stupid" ..... wah lau eh , that was such a harsh statement on me , a young little girl leh. standard 1 to 3 , I remained 'stupid' , every nite cried at home when sisters all forced me to study , or helped revised my homeworks .... I cried a lot back then , until my first brother in law nicknamed me 'ham pou chin' ( in cantonese ). Then entah what happened, suddenly standard 4 - I got transferred into the 'A' class - hipppie , at least tukar kulit liow , upgraded to the 'not stupid' class , haaa. I think the reason I was not able to catch up was that I didn't attend kindergarden whereas other students did. In standard one, while I was just started to learn A, B, C - most of the rest already learned this , and teacher also expected that I knew A, B, C .....
talking about being left out and being labelled as 'stupid'. Today, if the family is poor and the children cannot attend kindergardens, I could imagine their early primary school lives could be the same as mine, very the poor thing hor ...

The role of a teacher is very significant, he or she ought to be sensitive to the students. Plus a teacher should not labelled and used the word 'stupid' , everyone is different , everyone has his or her gifts and no one is 'stupid' ..... aiiiii

Dyslexia - the hidden learning disability

Dyslexia is one of the most common disabilities. Children with dyslexia have problem learning because they have trouble understanding words, sentences and paragraphs, thus not able to spell or read as well. Let me share with you who has this disabily too :-

Leonardo da Vinci - artist, scientiest
Thomas Edison - inventor
Lee Kuan Yew - Singapore Minister Mentor
Albert Einstein - scientist
Muhammad Ali - boxing champion
Cher - singer
Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Orlando Bloom - actor
Steven Spielberg - film director and producer
Walt Disney - film producer
Agatha Christie - writer

Wow, those folks are so successful , aren't they ? When these children go to school, the teachers need to introduce intervention programmes to teach them. Their brain cannot recognize words, thus use pictures. If we need to teach them 'apple' - show them physical apple or a picture of apple - their brain will register apple. The next time when they see the word 'apple' , they actually imagine the fruit apple , and that is how they comprehend and start to learn and speak...

Likewise, if the teacher is not sensitive or aware , force the dyslexia child to read the words or paragraphs, these children will be lost , at the end, teacher will think that they are 'stupid' , 'slow' ....then the children develops low self-esteem and eventually many more problems along the way. Dyslexia children are more artistic , they are usually good in drawing , imagination - thus you can see the celebraties list above - it's unusual to find dyslexia child being an accountant :). To me, among all the disabilities, this is one of the easiest to intervene , meaning a dyslexia child if is being diagnozed early and intervention programme is introduced early, the child can overcome and be a very successful creative joy to the family and society.

Sadly, in our country - the study found that most of the people who are in jail today - most of them are with dyslexia and they were not brought up 'properly' from young , they could have been labelled 'stupid' , 'slow' , 'hopeless' for the rest of their lives and ended up in jail. Padahal, those group of folks could have been another Msia Boleh 'Steven Spielberg' .....

being poor ....

Today, my classmate who used to be working in the corporate world, she was a Project Manager in one of the big insurance company, quits and be a special kid teacher in Mont Kiara. Today, she kept pouring out her 'pain', being a teacher is very low pay, after months into this line, now, she seriously feel the pain and being in a 'poor' stage. She said being noble is one thing, but being able to go thru life with money is one thing, right now, she needs to look into giving tuitions , to earn extra pocket money... Aiii, I know what she meant. I salute her courage , at least she took the step forward and doing it.

My class is filled with many good hearted folks from all walks of life , I can see that they are passionate and compassion , and really want to make a difference being a special kid teacher. Imagine if our education system or public schools are filled with passionate teacher like them , that would be so wonderful. But I need to stress is - with better paycheck of course.

I have this dream of running a special kid center, it is still a dream now as it is NATO - No Action Talk Only, today , I still cannot quit my secular job being an IT consultant, and jump right into caring community work - reason is I cannot survive the 'poorer' lifestyle yet. Having said that , if I keep saying I cannot I cannot , then it will end with 'I cannot' .... for now, at least I have started to lay some foundations eg property investments as my passive income, getting help and organize my own household issue, try to stay healthy so that I can do more , spending less time in secular world and trying to increase more time in community work, trying to adapt to a simplier lifestyle - such as less starbucks , more 3 in 1 coffee or mamak coffee , less branded shopping and more F.O.S shopping, know where to get good bargain , cook and eat more at home .... reflect back on my life journey so far , I think I have changed quite a bit and slowly adapting, the Lord has slowly opens the right doors and guiding me towards the right path. All this takes time and preparation, I don't know where I'll be landed, plan can change instantly , but for now, I am just going to enjoy the blessing and the ups and downs journey ! If I don't try , I'd never know the outcome ....

Child Development - tips

Many of my friends asked me about my class. Instead of repeating the answers, guess I use this channel to answer, hopefully it is more efficient for me and for my readers :) ...

Bahija completed her first module with A+ , hippie....now I am on 2nd module. 2nd module is a reseach paper on various types of Learning Disabilities such as Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD ( Hyperactive )...followed by a written exam on the various teaching techniques. This module is interesting as this is the core of the class , where I get to learn the various disabilities, and how we can introduce the intervention programmes for the special kids , with the goal to help them live a better life.

My lectures are the various specialists such as education specialist, Occupational Therapist, Special Learning teacher, councellor and etc etc. They shared many interesting tips with us.... some of them are applicable to normal child as well .... so I'll share some here too :)

Tip No 1 :
young baby - caretaker spoon feed the baby with food , when there is some leftover food beside the baby's mouth , NEVER EVER use the spoon to scoop the food. It is a proven reseach that this action may caused damage to the muscles around the mouth... young babies, they are growing every day , their muscle, their brain - everything is growing ...so for a young baby - there are muscle around the mouth, it is sensitive, and we shouldn't use hard object to spoil it...
( my mum always did this to me and all my siblings last time - luckily we turned out OK eh -hehe ) .... The reseach said that for some special kids with speech problem , this is a NO NO action. But then, none of us are aware mah , so damage could have been done lor ...
Parent, next time when you are feeding your young baby , spoon is to put food into the baby's mouth, to clean the baby's mouth, use a napkin or handkerchief and wipe SOFTLY , be gentle

Tip No 2 :
Early sign of detection for a special kid .... from 3rd mths onwards, a baby should develop eye contact , so when you are pointing to a direction, the baby's eyes should follow your hand .... and not the head. If the baby keeps moving the head , instead of moving the eye balls , be alert...

Lastly, we should be extremely blessed and happy that our babies are healthy and growing up happily and hope that one day , the baby turn into an useful adult - a great leader, a great contributor to the society. However, in the event that the baby is a special child, the role of the parent is not to be in denial and hopeless... today, there are so many successful special kids who have overcomed, and they are well known, living in a normal or even better life then you and me , contributing to the society. So what is the difference here ??? the difference is the parent is supportive and start to introduce early intervention programmes for the special child, and that intervention programme starts as early as from baby age .....

February liow

geee, as I mature in life, the year seem to pass by faster and faster and faster lah..... felt like I just celebrated my bday, went for turkey trip , new year ..... zooomed, January already gone, today is Feb 6 , CNY is next week .... then for all we know, Feb coming to an end too....

so many things to do .... heee, well, that is a good sign actually, life filled with tasks to accomplish is better than an idle boring life , so Bahija just has to plan and work on things accordingly...

End of Jan, I went to Shanghai and Hangzhou - it's a fantastic experience coz that was my FIRST BACKPACKING trip , as in no luxury coach, no luggage with wheels - everything on my own , carried backpack on my shoulder , walked and expected the unexpected :) ....thoroughly enjoyed the good company and fabulous trip....will blog about it when I have time and mood la,hee

EQ

For the past few weeks, working closely with my customers on evaluating a third party product. The tool is a good and super expensive tool, installed for many many many mths, no action taken...now that the license is going to expire .....customer asked me to help and feedback. So I tested, and discovered a long list of tasks , questions, messages, issues for the support folk. During this period also, I find that my EQ level is low ... tends to 'mang chang' fast .... hmm, got to go to cave, hibernate and meditate a bit ....must jaga EQ and image sikit :)

The reason I so mang chang is - I expect people to work at a faster speed and deliver better testing reports ... when others are not at the same page as me , I some how tak sabar ......hmmm. I'll have to slow down , let go and sabar a bit :)

3rd tuesday dinner ...

Today I left office at 3:30 pm, rushed for grocery , reached home 4:30 pm ... started to prepare for dinner at 5pm, busy busy busy and sweat a lot - haaa - all finished at 7 pm ...then after makan , need to wash , cleanup leh, so finally all completed at 8pm, hmm, spent 4 hrs 30 mins for a dinner , that's a lot of time la, haaaa ......nvm , I'll improve and try other easier recipe next time. tonight , we had javanese dinner - sudanese karedok ( salad ) , Padang chicken dry curry, taufoo eggs with sauce, kangkong and stir fry salmon ....verdict, not so tasty la ..heee

2nd tuesday night - hainanese chinese rice

Today rushed home at 5 pm , then went straight to the kitchen and cooked the hainanese chicken rice , hmmm, yummy yummy yummy ! here is our dinner tonight ........

good halal local food at DU

last friday lunch, went to Damansara Uptown with ex-colleagues. We ate at Village Park restaurant. It is operated by a chinese-muslim couple. The business is good, the food is good too.. I ordered their famous dish - nasi lemak with ayam goreng for RM 6.80. The santan rice sedap and wangi. fried chicken tender and cripsy .... we were very happy with the food. Will re-visit. The restaurant is same row as HSBC , the address is 5, Jalan SS21/37, Damansara Utama.