Moving

It’s May, and guess where I’m writing this. In the new apartment.

So we decided to move again sometime in April. It’s a BIG RUSH, but we had to do it…considering a new baby is coming in July. The decision is actually sort of like a family restructuring. Lots of companies are restructuring.. my businesses are too and we personally needed to restructure our finances to brace the current economy.

I feel really sad about leaving our comfortable nest but when things get tough, the tough has to get going.. I don’t feel like it but that’s what they say anyway.

The move was a brutal 5 days. We had so many furniture to shift around because of the size constraint.. We moved into an apartment almost half the size of our current apartment! It used to be 1450 sqft of running space and now we’re one room less.

I decided to sacrifice my beautiful office. *CRY* Hopefully the pressure of working in a tight space makes me work harder.

One month before moving I started googling tips about small apartment décor, organizing tips and zen living.

I got rid of some of my clothes & hubs.

I got rid of things I kept from our wedding and school days.

I wept and tore and said goodbye to my printed memories. We gave away a bunch of stuff at the FREEMARKET. We stored sooOoo much junk. The big space we had just swallowed up a lot of stuff, it didn’t look like we had any.

Before moving, hubs actually said,

I said, “did you forget the last time we moved?”

Yes, he forgot. Because when it came for time to move, we had to hire the lorry for TWO days. Imagine TWO days. One day just to get rid of things. The other day to move to the apartment. We even borrowed his dad’s pickup truck to move loose items ourselves.

I wasn’t supposed to carry heavy stuff but caught myself arranging racks and drawers. Carrying many many boxes, baskets, plastics. Carrying Naila & the cat. Carrying carpets. Okay you name it, I did it.

And now, on to DAY 5. This is what we’ve got.

Guiding Light in Darkness

I guess it’s that time again where I’m quietly lurking in a corner in the middle of the night writing some serious self-reflecting stuff. I call it lurking, because everyone’s asleep except me and the cat.

I think my weakness is not wanting to show people how upset I am, or how bad things are for me. I tend to compartmentalize the bad stuff until it doesn’t seem real until it’s just really bad. For example the fact that I was on the breaking point last year. I was handling the kid, the house, the hot & roll business & the homestay business. It sounds crazy, I had help with all of them but it was still unbearable.

But on the outside, I looked good, I wore makeup, I dressed up, I smiled and I showed up. Plus I cooked and I was a doting mom to my baby. I put on a façade to keep myself from crumbling. How crumbling was I? Well let’s say that I had evil thoughts of just dropping my baby to the ground and running away from everything.

I’ve no idea how to present myself as troubled. It seems like everything was going great, so how could  I even complain of anything? I just felt so alone. Like, nobody else knew what I going through, and who could I talk to? Ugh. I felt so helpless. I hated feeling that way.

In the end, we ended up hiring a full time helper. Alhamdulillah, it took several months to secure her, but we did end up with a good person. This solved 90% of my problems. I learned to let go. To let go of feelings of being the perfect mom, let go of being the perfect housewife.

To be honest, I now cook only whenever I want to. And that’s literally once a month maybe. Some girls really cook up a storm for their husbands and family, yes I feel a tinge of inadequacy, but what the heck, I was earning for the family and I can safely say that I manage the household—I choose the groceries, I choose the daily menu, I teach my helper our favorite meals, and I teach her how I want things to be done in the house. Then I let go. I also have to manage my jealousy of seeing my baby hugging and kissing her ‘ibu’. Yes, we taught my baby to call our helper ibu because you just have to respect her for taking care of us and the house. It’s about managing hard feelings, but at the end of the day, you gain so much more.

I don’t feel tired all the time anymore. I play a lot with my baby, doing all the messy creative stuff. I also have time to go for night dates with hubs. Exercise together. Eat together. Layan doing mint tea for him or something cute like that. There’s a lot you can do when you feel energetic. You learn to do work faster with more gusto because you wanna spend time with your baby.

I guess that’s why when people complain about their maids, I feel abit apprehensive. I hope they treat their maids right. I know first hand how hard it is to take care of a baby while running a household, so I always tell my maid what I expect from her but I try to be very understanding. And we talk a lot. I’m not exaggerating when I say that to me, she’s heaven-sent. Like Mary Poppins. Yes I felt like those lost and listless orphans. Except I’m the mother.

All I can say is that we’ve lost our innocence the moment we stepped into adult shoes. There’s no one to shield you from harsh realities of life, not your parents, not your hubs, not your friends, not your baby. It can feel extremely lonely in that little perfect life. Of course as a Muslim, I have God. He’s my strength, He’s my guiding light in the pitch black darkness. And He brings me out of it, everytime. I’m very thankful.

The Virtue of Being Positive

In this month of Shawal, I would like to talk about politics. Because my sense of timing has always been off, I’m not usually aware of stuff like birthdays, or friendship day or Raya. My Raya this year consisted of going back to Taiping for two nights, rushing back to KL, and back to work on the third day. Festive, I know.

I don’t usually say anything about politics. It’s dirty enough without having me to say anything about it. But someone close to me, i.e. mr. husband talks about politics 24 hours. So no matter how hard I try to shut myself away from the country politics, I can’t because I’ve got a live news telecast overshadowing me. Haha. (Love you hubby)

Anyway one thing people like better than gossip is bad gossip, yes? And I think generally Malaysians have such a negative outlook on our country at the moment. As if we’re all going to turn into a battlefield tomorrow. I understand the sentiment of a certain leader at the moment but the doomsayers dooming the country into bankruptcy and other sort of horrors for me, is just too much. Some actually say that they would like to leave the country for better pastures.

Seriously? Like, are you actually living on the streets to actually say that?

I can really give a long winded commentary here.. but in summary, I love my country. I think my country is going through some growing pains, not unlike any other countries. Sometimes we need to widen our view and stop thinking that our country is unique in its power struggles. A lot of other countries out there have experienced this earlier than us but continue on to be world super powers. We need to ride the wave with positive thoughts!

I can’t stand people commenting that we’re all going to be poor, we’re all going to be homeless or something along that line of thought. It’s just…so….depressing and bordering on ungratefulness. I wish people would just stick to the issue and avoid name calling, or spreading negativity as if we’re going to be the next Somalia. Some people even based their arguments solely on things they read on Facebook. Cringe!

Owh Facebook, you’ve became an unmoderated offensive coffee shop that has no consequences to the speaker. They can just spew out nonsense and not be held accountable for what they say. I’ve unfollowed such people by the way. It’s funny, because if you look at my timeline, there’s only rainbows and unicorn.

Let me tell you that it’s very deliberate. You know that chain of posts that break up the negativity in Facebook? I love that concept and that’s what I will do indefinitely.

Why?

Because it takes people’s mind off worries of a doomed country. And it takes people’s minds off anger. We’re already stressed out as it is, we don’t need people to spread fear mongering like you’re going to lose your job because of an incompetent government! Seriously, to put it nicely, shut up!

“Speak a good word or remain silent”.

P/S: I solemnly swear that I will post about rainbows and unicorns in my next post!

The Melayu Asian Confinement

You don’t know what confinement means until you’re really confined for 43 days! Not being allowed to walk up and down the stairs! Not allowed out of the house! Don’t wear pants! Don’t eat heaty food! Don’t eat windy food!

My favorites are

1. Eating ginger everyday. Chinese tradition.

2. Wearing belly binders/bengkung. Malay tradition.

3. Only drink warm water. Malay/chinese tradition.

4. Post-partum massage. Malay tradition.

5. Sleep when baby sleeps. Universal tradition.

Funny thing is, some of the confinement practices actually clashes with each other. In the beginning I was trying to follow everything, then suddenly nothing makes sense.

For all the preparation that went into giving birth, I could’ve done some preparation for postpartum confinement yes? Wrong. didn’t do any. I simply take it day by day.

What I didn’t agree with

1. Wearing socks all the time (Nanti urat kembang). I’ve really no comment on this. Wearing socks all the time in this humid KL weather actually gave me athlete’s foot! So I stopped pronto.

2. Wearing tight hair bun high on the head (Nanti boleh meroyan.) I was wondering what meroyan was for quite a while. Sounded like food, but in fact it is used to describe post partum depression in its worst form. Wearing hair in a bun does not help with meroyan. Extra rest and sleep does.

3. Bengkung 24 hours (I tried this, felt suffocated)

4. Putting limau+kapur on stomach before binding with bengkung. Well the basis of it is that, it supposedly helps your belly/uterus shrink. When in fact, your uterus will eventually shrink to its normal size within 6 weeks. Belly pouch on the other hand, is the consequence of stretched skin+muscles which can only be fixed with proper exercise, and diet. So no thanks.. I use olive oil + virgin coconut oil to fix my stretch marks instead.

5. Limiting fluid intake. Our body survives on water longer than it does on food. Our body is 60% water. Every function needs water. Making milk for baby needs water. Enough said.

6. Jamu/postnatal herbs/postnatal care sets. This is very subjective. You either like it or not. You can choose to spend RM 300++ on a set that gives you virgin coconut oil, some herbal soap, some herbal supplement that claims to help shrink the uterus, a bengkung, all wrapped up in a nice box. It’ll make you smell like a spa for a couple of days/weeks depending on how diligent you are about using it. I decided in the last minute not to get it.

Anyway, for me, I think the best thing to do is to try to get a LOT of rest post delivery. The first two weeks felt like a zombie daze. I probably looked like a zombie anyways. Felt sore and a little bit miserable from the lack of sleep. Probably had some bouts of postnatal depression.

However, as with everything, that too shall pass.

And pass it did. Of course when you hit the one month mark, you’ll be like, did I really gave birth 30 days ago? Why is my baby so precious? Yeah the mommy love hormones kick in big time. It’s all worth it in the end. 

Sod Off

Pardon me for being either a) MIA or b) a little angry because that is life now I suppose.

So we have a new colleague at my workplace. And being the people pleaser that I am, I try to make him feel at home starting day 1. Up until day 7, I started noticing that something was off about this guy; for such a small guy, he’s got plenty of arrogance. Not much older than me, but way more high and mighty.

So today he laughed and patronized me because I didn’t know Steven’s Corner. My colleague said, nevermind laa, you don’t have to know Steven’s Corner. The food’s not good anyway.

That shut him up. Means its true.

Plus Steven’s Corner owner was remanded by the police for flogging people apparently.

Also, turns out this colleague was fired from his last job. Not surprised. He and Steven’s corner can sod off into the sunset together.

After all, I’d rather hang out at la manila with Bella. (Hey, it rhymes!)

Bye.

What I’m Saying Is…

When I go shopping, I will try to arrive at the moment that they open the doors and go home in the afternoon. Reason is, one, you get to beat the crowd. Two, you don’t have to pray in the mall.

I’ve long had this dislike about praying in the mall. Not only is the surau usually ill-kept but you can never pray in peace. I really don’t understand why some people make suraus their hang out place aka mamak stall no. 2.

Obviously, I don’t know what’s going on in the guy’s area and I’m not finger pointing but 100% of everytime I get into suraus, you’ll get an aura that you have just stepped into a happening eating place.

Do you really have to share beauty tips in the surau? Do you really have to tell everyone in the surau that your friend’s stepsister’s fiance is a bi***? Or compare the clothes you bought? Or do you have to take up so much space in the little box of a surau when you can’t even pray?

For goodness sake, it’s a praying room so please respect everybody who wants some peace to p-r-a-y.

I might have done it in the past when I was young and stupid but I realized that what I was doing was so annoying!

Please people, be considerate and others will be considerate to you! This is Hitz.fm community message and together with the Hitz crew, we care about you!

p/s: This weekend is more of a tough love and I know Hitz.fm would never cover this topic. Har har.

Pet Hate

Coming back from work, I almost ran into a guy who thinks that the road belongs to his goddamn ancestors. He also had the gall to not look right or left before crossing, while crossing and after crossing. I call him Mr Metal Bone. Oh wait. Make that Mr Metal Bonehead.

There are just some things that people do in public that makes you wanna curl in a corner and bite off all your fingernails. Like those people who walk and spit on the road. Or people walking on the road, scratching their bellies. Another one is people digging their nose while driving. I don’t blame my bro for pressing the horn at them.

Last week I read one resume asking for a job in the company I work for. Surprise surprise, a mechanical engineer—graduated 6 years ago.

“I looking for a job. I am a team player and a gook leader.”

Is it just me, or is there something amiss? Are you making a joke? I understand if your spoken English needs brushing up, or your essay for that matter. But sending in a resume with blatant spelling and grammar mistakes is just asking people to laugh at you.

No excuse mister. 6 years of work with that kind of spelling error? Wow, I’m shocked. Why didn’t he write in Bahasa then? You know what the best part is? When it came to rate his language fluency, he wrote 8 (On the scale of 1 to 10) for written and spoken English. He actually had the gall.

Of course, my boss pretended like he’s never received the resume.

I’m sorry for being brash, but sometimes please be considerate to others, try not to waste other people’s precious times by doing something so unthinkably loco and estupido (thanks Google translation).

With that, I end my ranting. Now back to Gossip Girls. Remember what I said, boys and girls.

Ciao.

A Totally Random Scary Fact

Rats!

First things first, updates on the house rat. It lives in our kitchen. It can’t get out, and it eats food waste. Last night, we set up a mouse trap; or rather rat-trap to kill it. Well guess what, it ate the bait and escaped.

We’re talking about the spring loaded bar mousetrap here. Go Google if you don’t know what it is. How strong is the rat if it can escape this type of trap?

Me and mom are anxious about our hamsters. We first thought the rat might wanna mate with our hamsters if he sees them but after googling “rat meets hamster”, we see that perhaps, the rats would eat hamsters, sushi style no less.

Frankly speaking, I’d rather see my hamsters giving birth to long tailed babies *cringe* than to see hamsters sushi style if you know what I mean.

What’s that Milo? No, I didn’t say anything about rats,

I said cats.…Actually, it was mats.

Smashing Boxes

Last Friday I discovered alleged twin no. 5. According to this guy, she looks like me. I decided to check her out. And surprise surprise she looks nothing like me. I saw her face and I knew she was saying the same thing. Of course he told her about me.

Mom’s not home. I’m in charge of the house today, so I bought a bucket of KFC chicken and potato wedges, got home and yelled LET’S PARTAAY!!! To which my youngest brother look at me incredulously and muttered “uh yeah”.

“Kakak, ma wants you to help me with pendidikan seni exam.”

Which is so not party-ish. But really who can blame them

I blame school for teaching me how to think INSIDE the BOX. Do you remember those times teacher tells you No, you can’t answer it like that, you must answer it like THIS because it isn’t in the skema jawapan. Now I’m so very skema jawapan because I followed to a T and I pleased teachers, and I fit into the cookie cutter of the perfect answer.

Fast forward 5 years, I’m (forever) 21, and people start yelling in my ears, THINK OUT OF THE BOX. OUT OF THE BOX!!

I feel like smashing karate chopping the bloody box out of the way. But the box is 1 m thick and I’m tired sometimes. 12 years of being in the box makes me very good at staying inside!

One thing I swear I’m ganna do later is to let my children (bossing around other people’s children is out of the question) express themselves however they want. “Oh wow look at the blue sun! And the mutant worm that’s green, and purple! That’s so cute!!”

And if teachers punish them for having an imagination, they have ME to answer to. RAWR. I’m going to snap those pretty stilettos into two.

I dunno how much more do I have to smash, but there sure as hell won’t be a prince to kiss me out of the box so I’ll have to scrape through the imaginary cell myself.

You know what, I can think of only one reason why I’m this crappy. It is. It is the return of the horror semester at the university of Umhorror in 2 months! (Cue thunderstorm and lightning here) Yes folks, I’ll be going back there soon so be prepared to hear more bitching. Like wee! I know. Horroriffic right? Ugh. Can’t wait.

I’m going to miss the booming noise of Disney Channel when I’m trying to sleep, the screaming and shouting of my pet brothers, my mom shouting “EVERYONE GO TO BED!!”, the weekend rendezvous and practicing Wing Chun, Carmen Electra aerobic from YouTube. Sighs.

Goodbye heaven.

Oh No Kate Bosworth

I’ve got nothing against Kate Bosworth. If anything I wish she was acting in more movies. When I saw this picture, I thought she’s taking this fashionista thing waaaaaaaaaaay too seriously. I mean, grandpa’s oversized blazer and no pants? Don’t try to tell me that she’s wearing a skirt because that thing is shorter than my kitchen’s curtains.

-------------------

Side note: My brothers and I had a good laugh over pics of these tough men.

Something About Being Frustrated/Annoyed

• I surf for new blogs to read when I'm bored. So I come over to this blog with a witty name. I skimmed through the whole page and look at their blogrolls and proceed to another one. I usually go to the ones with a witty blog title because usually they're more fun. That's what I think anyway. Then I realize, alot of the blogs have witty names but completely irrelevant and not related to their blogs at all. Everyone's being so witty and clever that it's almost ridiculous. I feel ripped-off eventhough I didn't have to pay for anything.
  

• Why do people feel the need to scream into their handphones? Phones have mics and people at the end of the line aren't deaf.
  

• People who likes to assume stuff and actually tells it to your face. Usually, it's a bad thing. What a nerve.

• People who throw garbage out of their car windows and spit on the road. I used to throw garbage out of the school bus because it was a norm. After buying snacks, the bus conductor would say, "Don't throw anything in the bus, just dump it outside." I did that for 5 years and so did everyone in the bus. Now I'm trying to make amends.

Actually, I'm frustrated with how difficult it is to put together a blogger template. I'm done with the header but that's the easiest part. The css is giving me such a headache. I want it to be online soon. Because I'm really sick of looking at that temporary one. LOLS.

Have a nice weekend.

Pizza Hut Batu Gajah

This will be a short post, I hope.

I went to Pizza Hut yesterday with my roomie, just to celebrate the first day of study week. I thought it would be a pleasant eating experience, but guess what happened.

We ordered this:

1. 1 mushroom soup
2. 2 breadstix (because garlic bread was out of stock)
3. 2 meatball carbonara
4. 1 salad bowl
5. 1 set something pockets

Immediately after our order, they gave us the receipt and I noticed there was only one meatball carbonara. I called this waitress chick over and corrected her. This was basically how it went:

"Miss, can you add another meatball carbonara to the order?"
"Ok, add another carbonara. So that means 2 carbonaras right?"
"Yup, thanks."

A new receipt came, showing another carbonara on the bottom of the list. We went on eating salad while gossiping. 10 minutes later, that waitress came over with an order we didn't make.

"You ordered spaghetti carbonara," she said while putting the thing on the table. Me and roomie looked at each other.
"No, we didn't. We ordered 2 meatball carbonara."
"No, you ordered spaghetti carbonara." She said that with a punch-worthy face. I looked at my roomie and she backed me up saying, "She said meatball carbonara."
"No, it was meatball carbonara."

Then I told her to leave the damn spaghetti there. And she didn't even apologize. That *****.
It didn't stop there. Shortly afterwards, when we decided to forget that rude *****, we called another waitress to order a regular pizza for take-away. She allegedly made a note on that, and we continued eating.

After finishing everything, leaving scraps that we brought back with us, we went to the counter to pay. Then I told another waitress that we ordered pizza for take-away. She checked the register and guess what? There wasn't an order for pizza from our table.

What the hell is wrong with these people? They were completely rude, NEVER apologize, CARELESS, and worst of all, we PAID for their damn service. It's on the damn bill. RM 4.25.

I AM NEVER GOING BACK TO PIZZA HUT BATU GAJAH EVER AGAIN. And this is a lesson for all. I hope you guys won't go there. Turns out it's not only me, but a bunch of other people who went through the same thing. At the same place. Unless, you wanna experience the same thing for whatever reason that baffles me.

Remember, the name is PIZZA HUT BATU GAJAH. BOdoh.

UTP internet

Yeah thanks alot utp internet connection. You made me more connected to crap.
you make my life miserable.
I'm a simple person, call me negligent, but I wish the internet could be more more efficient for me. So I could move on and do other important things. Instead of checking 3 times to make sure an email is sent, an application is accepted.
3 times 10? 30 times of doing time-wasting activities. Totally makes my day.

Yeah, I paid rm98 for limitless use of maxis phone modem, to counter the god-speed internet here, but coverage in the room totally bawls me. I'm so surprised at the cutting-edge internet blocking system this place has.

I talked to maxis broadband, for the wireless services, but I doubt that there's any reliable service that could counter the sophisticated blocking system.

Frankly saying I'm 1 inch short of calling tmNET to drill a phone line up to my room, so I could have 1mbps. >THIS< short.

Wireless is useless here, cable connection is unreliable and unpredictable. Ammar and my family are probably one thousand miles away from me, and when they ask if I have a video cam, I'd have to sheepishly remind them about the UTP internet connection which could not support video conferencing.

I rant about it every now and then, but I always assure myself that the university is trying their best to remedy this, but What do I tell myself after years of coping with this humongous setback??

I'm NOT a passive person who just sits and contemplates till death. If the university wouldn't do anything, fine, I'll find my own internet supplier and I'm willing to pay rm200 for a reliable service; but when even that option isn't available, what, you want me to HaCk? Do all those tunneling work that some kids here are doing? It's not impossible, but that's irresponsible and selfish; and I'm none of that.

University Technology Petronas, hear my pleas and get me out of this misery. This isn't a world-class university until it's properly connected to the world. I mean, come on.

UTP Swimming Pool

How much grief can it cause us girls?

I'll tell you, ALOT.
They think they can easily declare Wednesday and Friday a girls day and leave it at that? And let a creepy male keeper to live in the tiny little shack, only to come out at dawn to chase us out.

A.male.keeper. on an.allegedly.girls.day.

I could go on all day, but enough said.

back to basics

Yes, I'm back in horrorville. And this time, I expect nothing less than raw tears, sweat and all. First week is basically bearable. Meeting up with people I know is great. I never said I hated people, on the other hand, my hatred is strictly confined to the place itself.

I'm determined to finish 2 story books this week and so far I've finished one. I'm a quarter into the other book now. The first book I read is called "Sisters" by Danielle Steel and I highly recommend this book. It's sweet, with some sour taste in the middle but overall an excellent read. The book I'm reading now is called "The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets" by Eva Rice and so far, I'm enjoying it.

I'm going back every week now, while my family is still here. I get so homesick, it's crazy! But when I'm here, I'll just have to suck it up and be a brave big girl, the way I was 2 years ago. The irony.

My hostility

I'm ganna act totally immature and say,

I HATE UTP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A little Frustrated

For the past few weeks, I can honestly say I go out almost everyday.
Now I'm quite sick of it, I just want to lie down all day long in front of the tv like a couch potato king. But that rarely happens because my family actually depends on me to drive. I'm like the official holiday driver of the family but without the salary.

I haven't been out just throwing money away.. It's just something me and my brother have been working on and it's taking so long. Longer than we expected. Robert Kiyosaki is right, something we venture on will usually take twice as long, twice as much money, twice harder than we expected. I'm quite frustrated the holiday is ending. If only I've got more time.

why I hate my college.

I don't actually hate it, more like I dread it. And I'm not ready to be pushed to the edge of sanity just yet! I know, I know, the holiday is slowly coming to an end and I'm starting to have panic attacks and countless nightmares. I'm not kidding, really.. One dream was so vivid, it took about 15 minutes to snap out of it.

Though I wish I had the liberty to call out names, I better not, in case a lawsuit comes creeping at my doorstep. Sheesh I don't know what are the rules, it's just better to play it safe, until I become more familiar with them.

Anyway, I'm trying to cram every last bit of awesomeness into this last 2 weeks and how do I wish I could turn back time. How don't we all wish that.. With that being said, I don't wish my holiday to be any different because I've accomplished almost everything I've set out to do during the holidays.

Sighs. I don't hate my college. It's just that my college hates me..

Boo hoo.

Can't help but to Trash Talk

I've had it with people who brags. Especially on their bags. And in BOLD. As if the world is interested to know.

Can you imagine how annoying is Albert Einstein if he keeps stressing the pure genius he is? Plus his electrifying white hair, could've easily became the reigning His Annoyingness. (sorry Albie, :P) Thank god he wasn't and went on becoming the reigning king of Nobel prizes.

Hey, it's a free country, but that isn't a free bag, so please go with less braggy type.

p/s: Bragging things are also a fashion crime, and frankly saying, cheap.