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 ...

hi hi hi ....

Howdee , my exam was over 2 weeks ago :) , the first week after exam , I took time off for a movie, a body massage then a facial ..... super duper 'song' , time for my own pampering ma. Started another new course, it is child pyschology, very interesting ....as in I am learning the different theories, will blog about them later. Besides classes, assignments and practical training ( I have to go to the assigned special kid center for hads on training ). My work is also getting busy but it's fun, I enjoy doing my technical work, exploring new features, test or play with them, then share and teach the customers. I don't have to participate in office politics :) .....I'm just a simple small guli ....

exam this sat :(

I have assignment and exam this sat - may 8 .... at my age, I find it hard to concentrate on memorizing the terminology , the theories ya de dah, ya de deeee.....aiiii. Anyway, no choice , must study well and get a reasonable grade la , else wasted. May I have the force to study and prepare well !!!

Tuesday night dinner ......

last tueday , I prepared tumeric rice with rendang chicken ..... tumeric rice ( nasi kunyit ) was yummy , healthy - all fresh ingredients. Rendang chicken , I ordered from a cafe :) .... tonight, I prepared bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, devil's egg and tuna pasta ... yummy !

TAR in Msia ....

Tonight I switched on TV, terus saw the current season of TAR - The Amazing Race...they went to Penang, from Sg Nibong bus station, boarded buses to KL , then took KTM train from KL to Singapore.... hmm, all of them complained that our KTM beds were dirty , they wiped the beds and it was 'dirty, dark dark ....' , haaaa. All of them were impressed with Singapore - it's clean. Too bad, I missed last week session on Penang , aiii... anyone watched Penang session ?

April 14

April 14 - guess it's not an 'ong' day for me ...the numbers itself if read in cantonese meant 'mati sure mati'. Today I suggested to customer to make some changes in the production database - thinking to speed up the process, so that more things can be done within the batch window. That was in a way a 'stupid' suggestion , I ended up fixing the issues this whole night, plus I also rocked the customer batch windows... April is not the month to screw up with my customer database, as this month is super busy for the whole malaysian taxpayers :( ...

when I reached home , I was walking to the kitchen in the dark , 'blirk' - switched on lights, gosh - first time in my life , I terpijak the thing that I hate most or rather fear most - I terpijak a coakroach lah , aiyuhhhhhhhhh.....

what a bad day for me ....

worrying.....

I got off from work earlier , went home at 3pm. That the bathing time for teddy bear, so I offered to bath him. I found out that there is a huge 'tumor' like thingy behind his head. For the past few weeks, I was trying to figure out why he refused to walk sometimes, he insisted 2 person walked side by side him, he put his hands on our shoulders, when he sits on the floor , he refused to stand up , instead he uses his butt to move around while sitting on the floor - these behaviours were abnormal to me. Last monday , sent him for blood test, mum suspected he could be having high uric acid which caused his leg pain ...blood test result uric acid reading was very good, only high cholesterol and high glukose. Now, seeing his 'tumor' , I am in panick mode, worrying about him ...... I really hope it's a false alarm. Teddy bear has suffers a lot from his seizures, please don't add more suffers onto him. In my mind, I started to think of all the nonsense , negative thoughts, made myself more worrying and cried and cried , gosh , that is not doing any good to me, have to stay positive , pray for him, to get to the right doctor and get to diagnose him asap....those of you who read this blog , please pray for me , pray for my brother Kim Chuan , pray that he is OK

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.