Esok Dah Start Kerja...

Today is the last day of my relatively long leave from work before having to go back to the office tomorrow. Last days such as these always have me feeling depressed. Spending the last few moments of freedom away from work, from all sorts of problems that crop up with it, the difficult people, bosses, situations etc. I have deliberately ignored to open my office e-mail since my leave began last Thursday even though my boss had told me to keep on the lookout at this one issue that seems like it would not settle anytime soon. The last couple of days have been filled with national holidays for crying out loud. It's not like people are going to be around even if I did try to carry on working. Hence, I have this dreadful feeling a big avalanche of problems and issues will fall upon me when I get to work tomorrow. *Sigh*...

I spent the last couple of days at my in-laws in Ipoh. My mother in law is starting a new blog. She's a budding novelist you see, with already 4 books to her name, and she feels it appropriate to have a blog of her own as a strategic marketing ploy. As a matter of fact, many novelists in Malaysia do that I've realised. My wife goes onto a number of blogs which actually publish their writings on their respective blogs before publising them into books. It is surprising how many people with the flair for writing are out there. It almost makes you feel yo could even do the same if you really put your mind and will into it. It does make for an interesting idea, but I guess I either do not have the time or creativity to think of a story to write.

Yeah, creativity. I guess I am better at using other people's ideas instead of conjuring up with something original by myself. I like relating stories I've read or movies I've watched and analyse the beauty of the finer points of the stories. A good story is like a good cake I guess, and I think I play the role of the diner better than the chef i.e. I know a good cake when I eat one, but ask me to make one, I don't even know where to start.

But having said all this, I do not deny the whole idea of writing your own book is a very attractive proposition, career and financial wise. Maybe I just need some encouragement to believe that sitting for hours trying to make up a plot for a good story is worth more of my time than being at the office being confronted with neverending issues of my company. Maybe one day if my work becomes bad enough, or maybe when I've become literary enough to start writing anything longer than a page-long of a blog. You never know...

Let's entertain the idea a little further shall we. Izwan the Writer. What would I possibly write about? If I may share, I do fancy stories with themes on time-traveling and fate. With some elements of tragic romance due to unrequited love, or circumstance that would never allow it. Something with a twist in the plot that would make the reader goes 'Ahhhh.... now that's interesting' as he approaches the last few pages of the book.

Hmmm... perhaps I do have something I can work on for a story after all.

In the meantime all I could do is deal with this feeling of depression in anticipation of work tomorrow.

The Week That Was

It has been a most hectic week, filled with so much fanfare, firstly from Insyirah's 2nd birthday bash last Sunday, and secondly from my mother in law's graduation ceremony which took place in the middle of last week. And of course when there's such fanfare, chances are you will get yourself all drained up in the after event.

Insyirah's 2nd Birthday Bash, 12 August 2007



The birthday party was a lively and fun event, although energy sapping altogether. I ended up the day with a slight migraine, but having seen how happy Insyirah was at the end of the day, it was all worth it. My wife bought Insyirah a special white dress with big red polka dots all over it, and Insyirah looked simply adorable in it. And I guess she knew she looked adorable. She was unusually friendly with the guests at the party, shaking hands with the guests, sitting on the laps of some of my guests.

The preparation for the party began rather early in the morning, and I was running around like a headless chicken at the word go the instant I opened my eyes that day. I had decided to cook the main dish for the day, which was chicken and beef beriyani. Hehe... quite a chef am i? Well, the beriyani came in instant packs, although preparing it in such a big scale wasn't exactly a piece of cake. Up to 30 minutes before the party was scheduled to start, I had a scare when the rice didn't quite cook well and was dry. Lucky I managed to get it sorted just before the first guest arrived. Pheww....

We had about 50 guests turning up that day, although we had rsvps confirming attendance up to 100. That's Malaysians to you... so there were plenty of food for everyone.


Guess who actually blew the candles off...

Insyirah's cake was specially ordered from Secret Recipe with a picture of Barney and friends on it. Did you know that Secret Recipe could have any picture you wish on the cakes you buy from them? We thought at first of having Insyirah's pic on the cake, but alas we didn't have any latest pic of her. Since kids are usually crazy about Barney, and Insyirah and Hannah like the purple dinosaur too, we opted for Barney and friends instaed. True enough, kids were demanding to have the portions of the cake with Barney and friends on it.

Happy 2nd Birthday Insyirah. Abah and Ibu (Bubu) loves you so much.

Mum's Graduation, 15 August 2007

My mother in law's graduation took place in USM, Penang. She got her PhD for some research she made (i can't remember the title of the research, but it's loong and something to do with women's titties). We drove to Penang the night of the 14th August 2007. I wasn't able to take leave on the 14th as my work commitment demanded me to be at the office. We left KL around 10pm, and I was determined to get to Penang as quickly as possible. Driving my Inokom Matrix, I wasn't exactly an incarnation of Michael Schumacher, but I was driving faster than my usual pace and more pertinently, ocassonally slightly above the speed limit. I was lucky enough not to get flagged down by the police who set a speed trap along the way. Free je RM300 kalau tidak.. fuhh.. after that close encounter, I abided by the limit and managed to reach Penang, slowly but surely by 3 in the morning.


My superstar Dr. mother-in-law with flowers from her fans after the ceremony...

The ceremony was a very loooong one. Can you believe it actually took over 3 hours?! 3 hours of sitting and looking at hundreds of people getting their scrolls from the university's chancellor. I wonder how the chancellor and the rest of the academic staffs on stage managed to hold in whatever that was in their bladder in that 3 hours. Maybe they had adult diapers on them? Perhaps... Hehe...


Future Dr in the making... Dr Insyirah. Hehe... i like the sound of it.

I am not sure about other local universities here in Malaysia, but when I was in the UK, my own ceremony took only half an hour, maybe 45 minutes tops. But graduation in the UK and Malaysia are really different. In the UK, it felt like an academic event with a very traditional feel to it. Malaysians are probably more festive in nature and the ceremony had an almost TV3's Jom Heboh feel to it. Dengan gerai2 makan, khemah pesta, animal corner (?), concert, teh tarik competition. The Brits would have eaten their hearts out...

We stayed in Penang until Friday. Since we were already there, we felt might as well stay there for a few more days for vacation. It had been a while since I had been in Penang anyway, my last trip being in 1994. I wish we could have stayed longer. Fun times and such vacations always have the tendency to end before you're ready for it.

Can't wait for our planned vacation next year.

Money, Money, Money!

The issue of money and ways on how to make more of it has always become a favourite suject to many. Many can't buy you love, or all the happiness in the world, but it does get the going much easier if you have more it than less. Who wouldn't want that extra thousand bucks if you could make it. It sure does make meeting my monthly financial obligations easier and more breathing space financially.

The subject has been on my mind a little bit more persistently than usual as I go through the process of paying off all my debt obligations at the moment. A wise person once told me, debt is the mother of all poverty. And credit card debts must be the great, great grandmother of all the mothers of poverty. I've never made it a habit to check my credit card statement regularly, and it is to my shock that I found out my monthly financing charges have been in the amount of RM100 per month over the last one year. Would you believe it?! Not that I'm spending anything here. i get charged that amount of money simply for having outstanding balances with the bank. Heavens forbid!

So with that discovery, my 5 senses have been more alert to any opportunity to make extra bucks out there. And I found out about this Adsense formula that is on Google. Make money by having people flocking onto your blog and clicking on the ads by Google that appears on my blog. Sounds simple eh? And what better way to make money than doing so from the comfort of your bedroom, at anytime, about anything, and for doing something you wanted to do anyway? But there's still that other problem of having enough people to flock into this space. i don't really get that many people coming this way.

So it's time for some strategy in the items I blog about then. Key words or postings with high search rates on the net. Porno is of course out of the question, although in terms of hits it should probably account for the most hits on the net... hehe... hmm.. what then? It is something worth thinking about. It is after all about money...

Insyirah Turns 2!

My beloved daughter, that precious little angel of mine by the name of Nuha Insyirah, turned 2 years old today! Yes it has been 2 years since that cheeky little angel, by the grace of God, came to grace our lives. 2 years of patience, of getting up in the middle of the night making her milk, 2 years of playing with baby pee and poo, getting the ocassional vomit on my clothes. Yes, it has been 2 years of bliss, 2 years that have made me grown so much more than the previous 28 years before she came to my life. I love you so much my little girl.

We bought her a little cake tonight, for her to warm up with the idea of blowing the candle off the cake before her birthday bash this Sunday. Although she did try to blow off the candle rather earnestly tonight, she still struggled enough for Hannah to jump in and show how her it's really done. Hannah just couldn't contain her excitement the moment she saw us bring the cake out. But somehow she managed to refrain herself from blowing the candle, and allowed Insyirah to make a few attempts before she 'voluntered' to show her how it's done. And in good spirits, Insyirah clapped her on when the candles were blown off. Hehe...

Here's to many more birthdays in the future. May all your dreams come true.

ps: Either blogger or my internet connection is giving me problems at the moment and I'm taking a zillion years just trying to put up a pic. So I only have a pic of the birthday cake to show and nothing else. Guess I'll put more pics after the big bash on Sunday itself. :-(

My Inner Voice Speaks

These last couple of days, I have come to learn (or perhaps rediscover) the art of listening to the voices within me again. Before I get anybody alarmed suspecting that I'm beginning to suffer from schizophrenia, let me reassure you it's not THAT kind of voices I'm talking about. It is the voice of your heart, or what the malays would call 'suara hati', which in my interpretation at least, asks you questions about your own mortality, happiness, ambitions, and where you are in the bigger scheme of life. Muslims call it 'muhasabah', a process of reflection of one's life, where we are in the bigger scheme of things, and where we're heading towards. And I feel that my recent job transfer probably has something to do with it.

I have recently moved to a new job within the same company beginning a month ago, after close to 7 years working in the old position. My old position had it's fair share of joy and fun in the early days, but in the last 2-3 years or so, have made me to drag myself to work. And if I may be honest, I could trace the reason for such a feeling to a particular person in the office whom of late has not just made my life a miserable hell, but the lives of others in the office as well.

If you traced back some of my earlier postings about a colleague from hell, then you would know who i mean. To give you a better perspective how really bad she is, whatever I have written about her in these pages a couple of years are not even half as bad as what she has really turned out to be. I had decided to stop bitching about her after my 2 posting about her back then as I felt bitching about others is not really a healthy way to handling such issues.

As a result, it probably caused the voice within me to go quiet altogether and I lost touch with the very essence of myself. I lost the voice within me that usually gave me my reason and drive. Because I had to live with working with such an incompetent monkey for so long, I had learnt to just live with imperfections and assume others would too. My bosses had allowed her to continue with her incompetence for so long that the whole unit almost turned into ruins. For instance, the company's financial statements for the year, which was under the monkey's KPI for the last year, was late by over 2 months, and even then it wasn't her who finally completed it. Just like the year before, she made horrendous mess with the accounts before conveniently falling ill on the day of the deadline, and left her shit to another colleague of mine and myself to clear it for her. We went back at 4 in the morning that day and to add salt to injury, the boss made us continue doing her job and gave us a scolding for being slow the next day. The monkey who conveniently felt better that day got away with nothing.

That was just a classic example of what she is capable of doing. I could go on and on about the unspeakable and dishonorable things she's done, but that would be digressing too far from the main reason for this posting and I shall save such stories of the good-for-nothing monkey for later. As it is now, I can feel my heartbeat beating slightly faster recounting the above events of her doing.

Basically, having to endure such a difficult colleague and a demanding boss who did not really know how to manage such a colleague and the ensuing mess she created, took its toll on me and I suffered in silence. My motivation gone, energy zapped, and I was beginning to have self esteem issues. I began asking myself, 'is this it?'. I felt like I was facing a great wall with no way to move forward or move around, and it felt hopeless.

The new job has so far given me a new lease of life. I am required to learn again, and I am again made to feel like a freshie in a new school. I'm made to feel dumb again, which requires me to go around looking for some answers. I'm exposed to embarassing moments of clueless-ness, and the regular telling off from the boss for freshie-like errors. The pressure to meet such high expectations, to my own surprise, had given me the zest again to stand up and show what I can do under such adverse situations. And yeah, almost all my colleagues in my new work place are merit-rated material, so I very much feel like a small fish in a big pond at the moment. The good thing about that is, there is an almost certainty that I won't have the same problem of dealing with incompetent people like in my old place.

I suddenly have so much to tell. But I guess the rest can wait till later. I have made a pledge that certain things about me will change, and I look towards the future with optimism. Things are not necessarily going to get any easier, but at least I now feel better prepared for any eventuality.

Movie Outing: Spiderman 3

It has been a long while since I went to watch a movie at the cinemas. Ever since Insyirah was born, trips to the cinemas can be counted with fingers in one hand. Well to be precise, before Tuesday's trip to watch the latest of the Spiderman movies, the only other time I had gone to the movies post-Insyirah was to watch the Da Vinci Code. Even then I didn't go with wifey who chose to stay home and babysit our daughter. The Spiderman outing was kinda spontaneous on my wife's part, being our first movie date in close to 2 years, so it felt kinda special.

The movie was great. The thing that I like the most about Spiderman is how human they try to portray the hero. In other words, Peter Parker lives like most of us: life as a college student, struggling to make enough to pay for rent and food, relationship related problems, etc. He lives a life that most of us could pause, reflect and relate those moments to our own. And it touches a lot on the themes of friendship and relationship. So working on such potentially emotional themes, it was always going to be more than just a superhero action flick.

I would probably rate the 3rd Spiderman movie as the best of the three. To begin with, there were more villains in this instalment that our webslinging hero had to get himself busy with, and then the plots were considerably richer and more complicated compared to the 2 earlier instalments. Not surprising given that the screenwriters had originally written the movie so long with so complicated plots, they were considering to break the story into Spiderman 3 and 4 at one point. That plan didn't materialise however when the writers couldn't come up with a satisfying intermediate climax, so they scrapped the idea. You can check more fun trivias about the movie from IMDB.com if you wish.

Strongly recommended.

Insyirah's Journal

I've thought to myself: My daughter has turned almost 2 years old, and really I have not kept a journal or any literature of her developments and antics over that period of time. It sort of hit me recently that certain things about watching her grow up that I considered to be novelties when they first happened are beginning to slip from my memory, and if I do not record them somehow somewhere it might get forgotten as time passes by. It is not just her major accomplishments that I'm talking about. Candid moments, moments of ingenuity, clever things said, etc... these are the things that I've begun to forget even though it might have happened only 6 months ago. Of course I won't forget such moments when she first called me 'Abah', or when the day she started walking... but there are other moments that you might not recall so easily with time. Yeah, I am getting old I know...

Insyirah turned 21 months today, and she has grown up to be such a bundle of joy to everyone who loves her. She is a rather demanding girl I must say, with very little tolerance for rejections, which means she would easily throw tantrums when she doesn't get things her way. And she is also an overly sensitive girl. She is easily moved by the tone in your voice, and she knows so well when people are unhappy with her.

Like the other day when Hannah and her were being naughty and accidentally dropped some bunches of keys from the key rack, they were laughing their hearts out at the incident. My mother heard them laughing and found all the keys on the rack on the floor. She gave them a telling off, telling them they were being naughty. At the slight sound of displeasure in my mum's voice, Insyirah made a face and broke down into tears and embraced my mum apologetically. Hannah on the other hand has learnt the art of distraction so well, and was pointing at the fishes in the pond outside to distract my mother... cheeky girl!

Before I left the house this morning for work, Insyirah took my hand and brought me into the TV room to watch cartoons with her. Hannah was having the say in the choice of programme to watch however, so we watched this VCD on alphabets. Insyirah made sure I sat there with her by sitting on my lap, and would frown and cry whenever I tried to get up. She's very clingy I must say, almost like a koala... hehe.. especially when my wife's around.

Earlier, I was awakened at 4 in the morning by Insyirah's soft cry. It wasn't the kind of crying from pain or hunger or from anything that could have indicated any serious alarm. It sounded like a cry of complaint from this increasingly demanding little girl. Apparently her anklets around both ankles had gotten entangled with each other, and her feet were tied to one another. Poor girl! Hehe... so I spent the next 10 minutes untangling them. COuld have been much faster though had I not been so sleepy...

I am missing her already. Will be going to Singapore for 2 days beginning tomorrow, and I'm gonna miss my wife and daughter so badly...

Hope my wife will call soon so we can leave the office asap...

Our Celebrity Look Alikes

My morale has not been very good of late. Been battered by a combination of too much work and having to tolerate the gross incompetence of someone who is so bad that I honestly feel like jumping out of the window of my office on the 35th floor just to avoid myself from killing her. I have been trying to achieve a lot of things today, working at home since yesterday and today are public holidays, but my whole body has been protesting all the way that I think I’ve only managed to accomplish like 30% what I had ambitiously planned to achieve the whole day. My mind keeps telling me it’s ok though… today is a public holiday for crying out loud, and your brain just can’t take the stress that much anymore. Yeah.. seriously I feel like I can’t anymore. Even with glaring deadlines now looking at me with look of death, I have been rather nonchalant about them.

In my struggle to cheer myself up, I strayed in Myheritage’s website and searched for celebrities that matched my looks. Well, it did succeed to cheer me up somehow. And for good measure, I did the same tests for my wife and Insyirah. Not bad I thought.. hehe…

Well, sometimes it’s good to do this keje2 syok sendiri just to boost the ego… hehe..

http://www.myheritage.com

Road Devils

Drove back to KL last night from Ipoh, which effectively was our last leg of the round Malaysia road trip for the Chinese New Year holidays. Yesterday was supposed to be a working day, but knowing how horrifying traffic on the highway could get on the last day of the holiday with KL citizens all heading back towards the city, I had already planned leave for yesterday. Traffic was still quite heavy though. Obviously quite a number of people had the same idea as I did. But still it was manageable. I managed to arrive home in just over 2 hours, with only a minor delay occuring in the stretch between Rawang and Sungai Buloh.

If there's one thing that I hate about driving on the highways in the holiday season, it is the driving habits of some selfish and inconsiderate drivers, terrorising the road as though the road was some racing circuit owned by their grandfathers. Traffic on the highway could sometimes slow down to a snail's pace during the festive seasons, and it is understandable to get exasperated at the pace when you could only manage to cover a distance of about 20km in a space of an hour, but please remember if you feel that way, EVERYONE else is feeling the same.

Some impatient drivers resort to speeding on the emergency lane, and cutting the traffic left and right just to gain what, possibly 10 minutes less on their journeys? And risking the lives of their loved ones and other innocent road users by driving dangerously? To be brutally truthful about it, I really don't give a damn if such selfish drivers were to end up under a trailer or in a deep ravine due to their thoughtless acts on the road, but it is such a pity when it ends involving their passengers and other road users.

It never fails to irk me when a driver cuts into my lane, squeezing into the space between my car and the car ahead of me, the space which I had adjudged to be a safe cruising distance when traffic is heavy but moving smoothly. All because the driver could not wait and resort to swerving left and right into any space they feel they could squeeze in to gain any measly minutes of their journey time. There was an instant when 2 cars actually squeezed into the space ahead of mine, apparently racing to get back into the fast lane after overtaking on the slower lane. There was just enough space for one car ahead of me, and when the second car just barged into my lane, almost hitting the front of my car in doing so, I had to hit the brakes rather suddenly to avoid bumping into its rear. A surge of expletives almost came out of me, and how I wished I was driving a trailer so that I could just mow down this imbecile driver. Lucky I was under a censored mode (wife and daughter were in the car), and was driving a mini MPV, or the worse could have happened.

As we reached Sungai Buloh, there was a blue Lancer Evo doing its zig zagging trick across the 3 lane highway, speeding its way pass and having little regard for the other vehicles on the road. A bus only just managed to avoid ramming into its rear as the Evo swerved from the middle lane into the slow lane with a perceived thoughtless non-chalance. "Crazy!", I thought to myself. My wife made a non-approving remark too. "Maybe he felt he's lived too long".

A few minutes later, just a few kilometres away from where the Evo overtook us, we noticed the traffic stopped almost abruptly. I had to switch lanes almost instantly to avoid the stationary cars on the middle and fast lanes ahead of me. A speedtrap maybe? Then just a few lengths ahead, I noticed a car that had spun out of control and ending up into the road divider in the middle of the road, obstructing traffic on the fast lane.

It was the same blue Lancer Evo.

Lucky the oncoming cars managed to slow down and avoided a further terrible mishap that could have involved so many other people. The Evo must have spun around across the 3 lane highways, its rear ending up ramming the divider. Looked like everyone in the car was ok, the serious damage limited to the rear of the car, and maybe to the driver's ego. It was a relief to see no one got hurt. But at the same time, it gave an inexplicable pleasure to see the stupid Evo driver ended up that way. Haha..!

Let that be a lesson to that devil.

A Welcome Break

My family and I went on a road trip this Chinese New Year, spanning between Johor in the south and Perak in the north, covering a total distance journeyed of over 1,000km. Apart from the crazy road traffic in these festive times, I've always liked going on long road trips. So many memories can be made from such long journeys, and I have quite a few stored in my collection of nostalgias, namely my road trips in New Zealand, Turkey, and Europe to name a few. Maybe I might just recount the experiences from these trips in future postings.

Anyways, I feel that the Chinese New Year break could not have come at a better time. Truth be told, I was close to the point of saturation at work. A couple of weeks ago, I made a visit to the doctor after experiencing intermittent palpitation of my heart, which had lasted for a couple of weeks up to that point. I was quite hesitant at first to made the visit, but the palpitations had begun to become too regular to my liking that I decided I had better find out if there was anything serious about it. From the ECG test I took, my heart was beating at a rate of a 100m sprinter when I was resting, and the doctor gave me some pills to get rid of the palpitations, and an advice that perhaps I was stressing myself from work too much. Suddenly, everything was put into perspective once again and I began to assess my priorities in life.

I mean, are all the troubles and stresses of work worth it if it means having to compensate my health? Having been told that I might possibly have a heart problem due to work stresses made me go into some reality check. Yeah, I have basically been working for more than 16 hours a day since early December 06 because of the company's budget and planning cycle, and to add to the excitement, my ACCA exam was scheduled in the midst of all the madness at work. I survived as I always have so far, but this time not without a little tug on my health and well being.

Perhaps I'm getting a bit old already. Perhaps cavalier moments like those I experienced in university are best not repeated in these times. There is too much stress going around me at the moment that I can do without the unnecessary ones with some proper planning. Yeah, planning. That is one characteristic I can really do with some development.

Anyways... here are some pics of Hannah and Insyirah taken while we were on our journey to Johor a few days ago. It is such a pleasure to see your kids grow and learn to do new stuffs. They are now at an age when they like to imitate behaviour and speech. There's no better therapy to stress than spending time with your child.


Hannah: "Insyirah... can you call Granny and see if she's ready to go yet? I'm tired of waiting and sitting here."
Insyirah: "Ok... I'll dial her up... lucky dad topped up my credit yesterday!".

Insyirah: "Granny? Where are you? We're waiting for you... lemme see, where are we.. we're near some fruit stalls, near the kiddies playing area..."

Insyirah: What was that Granny? The line's not very clear here... I knew I should have subscribed to Hotlink. Ok then, we'll see you here in 5 minutes ok? Our bums are getting sore from sitting too long, and I think I'm due for a nappy change too...
Hannah: Me too! I just had a big one!