a housewife lifestyle .....

Bahija is promoted to be the 'woman' of the house. I go to bed early, wake up early....prepare breakfast, get things ready , then wake up Teddy Bear, measure his glucose level using the glucose test kit, then gives him breakfast, then get him to exercise for 5 mins ( hopefully ), then prepare to go to work , then get off from work earlier, go home , prepare dinner , dinner at 6:30 pm or 7pm...again pre dinner - do glucose test, repeat the test 2 hours after the meal, exercise 5 mins again, wash up , get ready for next day , watch a bit of TV, read newspaper - then time to sleep. That is my typical day schedule now , this will continue for a while until I master the diet plan. Teddy Bear is diagnosed with diabetes ( beginning stage). He's on medication, yea - besides his dozen of epilepsy medication, now adding diabetes as well. A few log books for him, tracking : his weigh , his blood pressure , his glucose level before and after meal, his fits frequency, his abnormal observation. Bahija is learning to buy, prepare heathier food at home, have to share with my mummy, and encourage her to cook the same. Mum only know the traditional chinese cooking, now I am introducing simplier, easier , healther way of preparing the food. It's a lot of work, I dozed off easily by 11 pm :). I am learning to grill 2 dishes in an oven, cook rice plus steam another dish in the rice cooker , so in total , I have 3 dishes with brown rice. Yesteday started to use the glucose test kit , scared to poke the sharp needle, yeeeeee... but then, I have done 6 times liow - sudah immuned, so practice makes perfect. My take is, once I get the process in placed, when I know what diet works for Teddy Bear, when mum can help to monitor and learn to prepare healthier food, when things settling down a bit, it's time to get a domestic helper. Hope I can employ a good helper :)

2D movie ?

My nephew from LA is back in town for a visit, now that he's a teenager , he is more particular on things to do ...no more I say go here, he'll follow :( - that time 'was' over. Now , need to seek his agreenment on what food to order for him, what clothes to buy for him etc etc ....well, this is the teenager stage, he is in the 'identity' stage. Anyway, 6 things that make him very happy :-
1. eating beef /steak
2. good movie
3. starbuck caramel frappucino
4. maggie mee curry flavour
5. coke
6. McD

This week, we went for 3 movies ( what a luxury treat for me ), watched Inception, Salt and Toy Story 3D.... when I bought tickets online for Salt, it keeps promoting 2D ...I was curious why 2D ? how can it be 2D ? coz the normal movie we watch is memang 2D already , then how and why there is new category 2D ni ??? .....being curious and rushing, I didn't find out more , just paid for the ticket and watched. Hmmm , if u ask me, I think it's a 'cheating' , it's the same as normal movie ....normal movie at MV is $12, 2D version is $14 ....I think I paid more for nothing. Next round, I'll just stick to the normal version ...
My american nephew who is only 14 yrs old loves Inception, he said it's a cool movie and smart people understand this movie , for those of you who watch this , perhaps I can do a liite test on you :P

Happier taxpayers ....

Thesesdays , a lot of my friends will come to me, told me 'Bahija, I'm happy that I received a letter and cheque from tax refund' , I'm happy for all of my friends. I see some good improvement in the tax system too..... this week, I'm doing health check on their system, my data showed that all the tax refund tables have increased in sizes, some even increased by > 110% - mean double growth leh. From system point of view , I would like to think that the application is coding well, capturing the right data in the right way, so that this growth is a positive growth which reflect same direction as the business growth, in this case, more tax refunds data because more people is getting the refunds. Bahija must closely monitor these 'huge' objects, ensuring they have ample room to grow yea :) .... my team mates have done great work , to tune the system, to tune the problematic issues - thesedays the CPU is good, can execute more tax transactions , hopefully can make more taxpayers happier ...

Those of you who think you may have tax refunds , but haven't receive any notification .... you may call or pay a personal visit , may be that can speed up your refund :)

Ah Long

Today at work , a muscular indian man, dressed well , speaked well, smelled well too - pakai perfume, stepped into my customer office. I opened the door and asked 'nak jumpa siapa ?'. The person he wanted to meet wasn't in the office, thus he left his business card and a small note. Right there, my instinct told me that he's a high class 'Ah Long' .....true enough, after he left, I looked at his business card - it says 'xxxx bank , senior executive , 'Field Collector' ..... it's the first time Bahija met with Ah Long ma, so I thought that is interesting to see a well dressed Ah Long. Wonder if he couldn't recover the debt , would he be gentleman, well speaking and smelling good ah ? hmmm , for my customer who is having financial issues now , I wish he and family can sort things out la .....

rich resources land .....

come to think about my country , it's a lovely place actually .... it has lots of sunlight, lots of rain and no serious 'disasters' such as earthquake, tornado yet. I received a filter reminder note today , reminding me to change my kitchen filter, yea , every year , I gets this same reminder , and it started since 20 years ago , amazing - isn't it. For a company to continuously send reminder to me, remembering me - a small customer who bought a kitchen filter system ( BTW, the filters are made and from England still , not china made punya ...) For this 'B' company , I salute them & give them a thumbs up.... ok, in the reminder letter, they also share other products, I saw their latest 'Rain Water Harvesting system'. Then I googled and checked on it.... apparently , in Johor, a local professor published a good paper on this topic. For them , to get all the things ready for Rain Harvest System is only less than RM2000. ( exclude labor charges)..... 'B' filter company also offer their products, they even partnered pilot projects in Sime Darby homes ...that is so wonderful. For a country which has plenty of rain waters - it make sense for us to recycle rain water , channel them into home or commercial use, avoid flood , save water bill , save the earth .... Then conserve energy , use sunlights for electricity, build home which uses the sunlights well - bring lights into the home ....I am now dreaming of my 'GREEN dream home' - single storey with 5 rooms , 3 to 4 bathrooms , 1 dry kitchen, 1 wet kitchen , 1 TV room , 1 living room , 1 huge store room ....this dream home is using rainwater , natural sunlights plus other 'green' technology. How sad, only if Govn't knows how to use natural resources wisely, to reduce the rakyat's pain, make our pocket more 'kembang' yea. Why I say Govn't .... coz right now, anything to do with 'green' better technology - usually is very very pricy. If the policy makers can make all these transparent, and apply to more users - spread the costs out, make things cheaper for us to use. I always get questions from my mat salleh friends, how come Msia don't conserve energy ? don't use this , don't use that ..... I always said 'entah, I also wonder why .....'

An evening with Lea Salonga .........

How did I know about Lea Salonga ??? It started all the way when I attended my first musical 'Miss Saigon' in Singapore in the 90's. Miss Saigon musical was awesome !!! May 22, WauBulan and I went to her concert in KL Convention Center. I thoroughly enjoyed that evening, loved all her songs, simply mesmerizing, one of the best concert that I've attended. Her voice is really powerful. Besides her songs, I also enjoyed listening to her life experiences, she's an elegant woman, sweet, smart, kind, sincere. She dedicated some good messsages and songs to us - 10Q and I wish she's back to town again, this time, I'll go for the most expensive seat. HaHa...

Teddy Bear's first test ....

This morning Teddy Bear attended his sunday school. His teacher gave him a test, tested him if he could write / draw the straight lines - up down, right left or diagonal etc etc .... Teddy Bear didn't know how to do this when he first attended the class. His fine and gross motor skills are very weak. Today , he managed to pass his test flawlessly , as in he drew all the straights lines :) , that's a great work from this little old boy ( 44 yrs old liow la ) .... He'll get his reward - a McDonald treat this friday :) , his teacher is coming all the way from Subang to bring him out for his favourite food. The morale of the story is : even a mentally retarded person is learning to improve himself, he feels good about himself ( that's social status - haha) , thus for the rest of us , we have no reason for stopping to learn , we have to keep on learning, keep on enhancing our lives :) , life is a life long learning journey !! I'm proud of my Teddy Bear ....

I am FAT :(

I stopped all my cardio exercises, as well as yoga since January ....because I went for bones treatment. Now, I am such a big fat woman , gosh ..... always feel tired, working pants tight :( S.O.S , Bahija has to start moving again and shed off the fats. Wish me luck !!

OKU allowance

Yahoo ! Teddy Bear FINALLY has his FIRST bank account at the age of 44 :) , not only that , he also has money allowances. Last year June, we applied for the non-working OKU allowance. It was rejected because we over-qualified - household income high. 2 mths ago, miracle happened, I received a letter asking us to go JKM ( Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat ) to receive the monthly allowances. Viola , I count this as durian-runtuh lor , as I haven't appeal nor re-submit the 2nd application, rezeki sudah datang .....The requirement states that so long the person is OKU and not fit to work, he/she can get the allowance , so by right - we shouldn't have to be interviewed on one long list of 'assets', 'cars', 'household incomes' etc etc .... All my family members are taxpayers, we pay the taxes , and we also have to support our OKU brother, so if Goven't allocated some subsidy for them, it is his right to apply for it ....we are saving that money for his medical expenses.

The other thing I wish another miracle will happen - which is the tax deduction for one of the family member who is taking care of OKU folk. Msia tax law is that only father / mother of the OKU can claim the handicap deduction. My case is father tak ada liow, mother not working, the siblings are the one helping to take care of him, yet none of us entitle for any tax deduction. The only way to go about is one of us has to adopt Teddy Bear as our son , which is ridiculas leh ...aiiii

** if any of you want to help other OKU folks to apply for this allowance and don't know how to go about , please ping me ....

positive emotion

In class, my professor asked us to list down 'emotion'. We gave her the list - happy, sad, stress, envy, jealous, angry, nervous.... Then professor asked us, in the list , how many was positive emotion ??? the answer was ONE only ( Happy ). Then she told us that reseach showed that the positive vs negative emotion is always 1:3, means among 4 emotion list , 1 is positive, the rest 3 is negative. She reminded us the power of being positive. Usually, most people naturally thinks of negative emotion , or negative things, and we emphasize less on positive emotion or positive behaviours....she reminded us that being a teacher , we need to be more careful, teacher ought to be more observant and praise the children /students when they've done positive behaviours or tasks. Eg when a student has long hair , we may commented negatively on his/her long hair , likewise, when he/she has short hair - did we ever comment the short hair - which could be a better hairstyle ??? sometimes , kids just have to do the negative things to get our attention .... hmm, becareful... start by saying good things about others , OK :)

Parenting ....

In my little world, I used to think that the most difficult job in the world is people managing job. I dislike to be a people manager, as I find it tough to manage human being, everyone is different and have different needs , style and etc etc etc .... that is why I try to remain in the technical career path..... Since I've started my diploma class, now I will rephrased, I think the most difficult job in the world is wanting to be a good parent. Parenting is really not easy at all. No one has a manual to learn the right or wrong, or to go to school to learn how to be parent, everyone learn from the real life experience, that is also why parent is to make mistake , and the child should forgive the parents too. Today in my class, we leart that when parent decides to have babies, they really need to be serious and must take time to spend time with the baby from the day he/she is born. From baby to infant ( 1 to 2 yrs old ) - they develop this 'attachment' - there are 4 types of attachement - 'secure' ( positive attachment) - the baby feels safe and like to be with the parent , or the caretakers ( those whom he/she trust ) , 'avoidance' , 'resistant', 'disorganized' attachment ( all these 3 are negative attachment ), as parent , when you have babies, your job is to make sure you give them verbal , non verbal responses, listen to them , as well as present physically for them, they need to be touched, hugged, loved for. If the babies developed the 'secure' attachment - eg - at age of 1 to 2, when the baby just want to cling on to the mother, when others want to carry the baby , he/she cries ---> this is very positive, the baby has develop a 'secure' bonding with the caretaker. This baby will grow up positively.
Psychological study showed that most countries has > 60% of babies growing up having the secure attachment. To all the parents out there , SYABAS , WORK HARDER !!

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 ....