Updates - Part 1

I've not been writing much this year...ha! too many things happened too fast. New Year, Chinese New Year, my birthday, resignation, The Phil Society Singing & more.

Yup, I joined Phil...I've been wanting to do this for very long time but wasnt able to find the right channel and get myself into singing group. With God Grace...I found Phil last October via FB. Ha! I didn't manage to join last season and it was near misses from the orientation. Then, 2nd chance came when they announced again via FB page they recruiting for 2012.

If someone ask : "what so special bout it?". Well...dono. I think is more like when I'm near to music, there's where my heart belongs. This is my 5th wk with them, the experience just simply amazing. People from walks of life, diff religions, races & ages come together just to share their voices. 4parts, sometimes 5...These people just embrace the gift from God..."Music".

Ha! Pretty much of talking here...I dono how long i will sustain at one place (knowing myself likes to move around & do different stuff ;p) But i guess i shouldnt start thinking when is the end. I have it now, I should enjoy it. This is a good chance to know myself better...music or construction? ;p

to be continue........

For the First Time

For the first time, today I told my boss : "Pls dont raise your voice, it will not help us solve the problem. It will demotivates us & difficult for me to continue support you on the work."

Ironically, he lowered down his voice & listen instead of yelling infront us. First time, I felt that I've EQ & put in good use. ;p

....So what will you do with your tin??

As i unwrapped the Quality Street chocolate, i saw the bottom of the tin says : "....So what will you do with your tin??? " (followed by...visit www.qualitystreet.co.uk for more great ideas)

haha...i was thinking, y not check it out...hmm...interesting to see how to recycle from the outer tin until the very bit of the inner wrapper...(haha...minus the chocolate which will melt inside the mouth)

check this link : It even tells a little story about the chocolate packaging revolution (should i use this word?? appropriate???) from glass jar to tin.

A simple catchy line on the packaging & a web link on some ideas....i think it sure gives some plus point if the m'sian F&B packaging does the same to promote & help the environment... ^_^

Interesting People

Its always makes office a fun place when you have colleagues from different countries. Ppl share their experiences, their backgrounds & believes whenever there's a time for tea.

I've two quite buddy Iranian friend in the office, both occasionally shared their stories during days back in Iran. Just like yesterday, we were talking bout war during lunch. Two of them looks a bit disturbed during the conversation. Apparently, two of them witnessed war when they were young.

This is what they recalled...

Friend A : "u know, their used to be a army airport behind my primary school. It was Iraq & Iran war.. one day during the class, the airport was bombed. The glass window of the classroom just shattered & out of sudden everything was in a mess." "best part, the teacher ran away without checking our safety. I've to rush out from school & ran home myself. It was scary..."

Friend B : "My dad used to be in army force, most of the time we have to seperate from him & worry bout his safety until we moved to Teran. It was a tough time, my mum has to take care of me & my two younger brothers. Everytime the siren sound, she will drag us into the underground tunnel to hide. sometimes 20mins, sometimes even longer" "I've seen dead ppl lying infront of me, it was sad."

I've seen documentary about war, heard my popo & elderly ppl talking bout war during the 40's. It takes a lot of courage to talk about it & often see the sadness in their eyes....Same goes to these two friends of mine...I guess this is something we cant imagine how difficult it was for them to let things behind & move forwards. That makes them more humble & treasure what they have now.

Perhaps we dont need to witness war like what they have seen & learn how to be humble, but through these ppl we should learn how to love and honor of what God has given to us.

Creativity in Contest Rules & Regulations...

Recently I joined a contest run by Lonely Planet..while reading the rules & regulations, i found this particular paragraph quite amusing & creative...please read the the lines in pink. ^_^

To enter you must submit your name, email address, and country of residence plus upload a photo that you have taken yourself of your travels, a description of the photo and the location in which the photo was taken via the promotional website at lonelyplanet.com/win. You don’t have to buy anything to enter. You can enter between 12:01pm AEST on 29th January 2010 and 12:01pm AEST on 28th July 2010. You can enter as many times as you like, however only one of your entries may be selected as a finalist (that means you will only be eligible to win one of the Nokia handsets in the prize description below). Your entry is received at the time Lonely Planet receives it. If your dog eats your entry, it’s not Lonely Planet’s fault. If your entry gets lost in cyberspace or doesn’t arrive for any other reason, that’s not Lonely Planet’s fault either.

An Evening Talk on Travel & Photography

(best speaker of the evening...2nd from right)

Chun Man invited me to join her for an evening talk at Pudu several weeks ago via FB...Both of us totally forgotten about it until that very morning (14 Jan 2010). At first was quite hesitated to go as both of us were very busy at work, but I decided to dump whatever work left behind & went ahead to pick up Chun Man for the talk.

It was an interesting evening, the talk was conducted in Mandarin & English.. basically with 4 speakers shared their experiences of backpacking in Europe, China, Taiwan & few other destinations. Some with funny encounters, some with acquaintances & so forth.

They gave an overview about what to expect & how to take care of oneself when you are away in a foreign land. The talk open up & encourage participants to travel more in a freer style instead of following the conventional way going on "Tour".

We stayed back after the talk & grabbed a few copies of magazines from them. The photos taken by the club members were astonishing, especially those taken from their annual backpacking trip to Nepal & Xi Zhang. Oya, they organise trips for backpacking as well as photographing. Relatively cheap (ie. 11days to Nepal & Xi Zhang - All in is about RM3-4k)...hmm...maybe...hehe.

Anyway...check out the video..cheers! I'll going back for more talks if whenever there's a chance to do so. Have to thank Chun Man for recommended this to me. ;p

Doraemon Mooncake

For the first time, mooncake came out with doraemon's figures...my housemate & I immediately bought this back. Her intention was to eat those special recipe mooncake while I was eyeing for the recycle bag & the box...thus both of us got the deal to share the mooncakes & i get the rest...haha

I heard there are Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty too...few years back i came across with Garfield as well....but nothing bid this (Awwww...i love this so much). This adds up into my Doraemon Collection...yahoo!!

What a good way to celebrate mooncake festival... ^_^

爱情

沙士比亚先生曾经说过这么一句话：

爱情是一朵生长在绝崖边缘的花
想要摘它必须要有勇气
人们可以支配自己的命运
若我们受制於人
那错不在命运 而是在我们自己

好有趣的一番话，人嘛！总是在爱情的方面最脆弱。我也不例外。。好想谈一场平凡不过的爱情。不需要海四山盟的承诺，也不需要华丽与多余的奢侈品。。也许要一个人不计一切的拿出勇气来爱我是很难吧！可笑吧！

New Adventure on Number puzzles..

I was at Carrefour today to grab some groceries; just happened that they were having sales on books at RM5 each. Without 2nd thought, I started digging into the piles of books to see what's good for grab.

Yup,this book about "Kakuro" caught my attention. At first I just thought of flipping through the pages & see what's all about Kakuro. Soon I found myself fond of this number puzzle. ;p

I took the book home, there were 124 puzzles in total & I've been solving it one by one even when I'm typing this post..haha. Is fun, now I've more challenging puzzles to attempt during my free time other than Sudoku.

hmm... I wonder will MSIG organise annual event for Kakuro in future just like the one they have been doing for Sudoku. It sure be fun to take part on this & see how many Kakuro maniac out there. ;)

Going Green with Doubt

I've been using my own container for quite awhile regardless bringing home cook food to work or tapao "take-away" from stalls. Thinking this might be a little step saving the earth; to reduce the usage of plastic bags/Styrofoam lunch box...but ironically I disagree with what I'm doing at the same time...as in when I wash the container after using it, i realized I'm making another type of harm to earth with running water & detergent.

Lately, the media has been doing an awareness campaign on water. Poster with statements such as "Do you know 10,000litres of water is needed to prepare dinner for six per day??", "A person uses more than 100litres of water a day"....The statistic shocked me. I knew the water consumption has always been alot with the kind of HOT weather in Malaysia, but I never expect it to be that much.

Now...should I continue using my containers & uses more water?? or should I just ask the stall to pack my food in plastic/styrofoam & create more non-degradable waste?? What can be the best solution that can balance our daily life yet going green to save our world??

Use banana leaves to pack rice & noodles like the olden days perhaps??? Atleast the leaves is biodegradable...what about the soup & porridge then??? haha..tough choice!

Piano Lesson for Beginner

Dear All,

I've started recruiting new student (beginner) for piano lesson. Please contact me at 012-6917908 if u or your kids are interested,k. Area covered : PJ & certain part of KL.

Thanks.

Dr Know-it-All !!

In year 2004 Hitz FM came out with a brilliant program called "The Adventure of Dr Know-it-all". The program was basically encourage the listeners to learn & know more about history in a very funny manner. I still remember some of the topics were, The history of Refrigerator & Freezer, The Bikini, Cell phone & etc.

I like fun learning...but sometimes what you have been taught may not be true. Some maybe Taboos or some maybe you have learned it from the wrong person & at the wrong time. The classic two examples that i can relate to were :

1) Nasi Goreng Pattaya (Pattaya Fried Rice)
It is one of the popular mamak food in Malaysia with Fried rice wrapped with a thin layer of fried egg. I would say many Malaysian thought it was originated from Pattaya, so do I. It was later that i found out there is no such thing in Pattaya.

2) Spaghetti Balognese
Haha...this one i just found out recently via AFC (Asian Food Channel). Spaghetti Balognese is not from Balogna nor from Italy!!! Even though Balognese Sauce is very famous dish in Italy. I was amused knowing that I believed the wrong stuff all these while.

Hmm.... How many more stuff that i know of are not the actual facts, I wonder????!!! ;p

Family Recipe

It has been more than 30years my aunts in baking cakes, biscuits & local kuih-muih part time business. When we were young, we always take for granted that aunts will continue baking for us as long we asked. Time past & aunts are getting older...only then i realised if none of the younger ones learn up the recipe, it will be gone sooner or later.

So i pleaded my both aunts to teach me during my stay in Taiping last weekend. Time was short, we only managed to cover two recipes...but it was good enough, will continue others my next trip home.

Few things i learned during the process :

A) It only cost less than RM15 for two different recipes - u can feed at least 10persons. (can u imagine how much profit can those kuih sellers making per piece? waoh! good money, can consider doing part time business later..hehe)

B) Its fun to see the end results turned out almost perfect for the 1st time...haha

C) Baking is an art that required patient & love. (putting love into baking will make it taste even better!)

D) Satisfaction - I know why all these while both aunts never reject baking for us, coz is the satisfaction in them when they see us enjoyed the food they made.

E) Baking is about sharing & get together with your love ones.

F) Baking is like story telling - will continue from generation to generation...as long as we dont stop telling. Even when they are no longer around, u will always remember the scene when they baking it & the taste will never be forgotten.

Nway, below are some pics for sharing... ;p

First Recipe :

Second Recipe :

The Day I Fall in Love again - Part 2

Tah dah!!! Time to review the truth...hehe...This is my dearest Timex Iroman T54242 running watch. Since early this year i had been looking for a good watch for my running and apparently couldn't find one that suits my budget. Until last September when i was doing shopping one day with Pooi Fern & Gary in Mid Valley, we spotted this in the watch store.

The bargain was good, the initial price was RM 239 & I got it at RM175. Well, I'm really happy with this watch...it's light, trendy, in my favourite color & size ,it has the basic features that i wanted & is so much cheaper than my first choice on Swatch. ^_^

Now you know why I said I fall in love again...haha...with my Gadget of course!! I dont need to worry about my other watch which was present to me from getting wet or scratches during sports anymore.

The Day I Fall in Love again...

Hehe...stay tune. ^_^

一切只因有你

一个淡淡的微笑
一句问候
无喱头的玩笑 一一烙印在心里

一切只因有你
咖啡是甜的 月夜是蒙胧的
花是香的 风不再是冷的 而是暖暖的

我比谁都勇敢了
不再害怕黑夜
不再孤单 不再寻觅

简单的幸福 让我笑了
这一切的一切 只因有你

PC fair...finally over!

Is 2am in the morning & i just came back after packing..Pheww!!! Is OVER! finally...good news, our team hit the target!! we are going for holiday soon!! I personally hit 4 figure target....I'm so happy thou i'm extremely exhausted now & i lost my voice.

Today's crowd is double of yesterday...the fair starts at 11am & the Q was there since 10am in the morning as if Q'ing for Concert tickets...haha. Many booths came out with their final best to attract buyers....even the DIGImen was there to give free laptop case if anyone sign up for postpaid plan...good deal eh? The antivirus company pula sent many cute girls in nurse costume to sell their product, Creative man!!!

I encountered something funny which happened at the booth next door...they were having dancing mat competition..apparently there was this young guy took off his shoe & did the dancing...immediately those crowd within the 3m radius vanished in split second...reason? hahaha...cant bear his feet which smell like rotten fish...OMG!! I nearly vomited the only meal i took today. (dont get me wrong thou, my sis fed all the staff like pigs...just that everyone was too bz trying to hit our sales target)

Oya, i met friends like Pooi Fern & Gary..they were there to grab good deals. Towards the end of the day, I met Charmine, hubby & her youngest little girl too. But it was too crowded to have a long chat.

Well, that's the end of this event....G'nite. ^_^

PS : We took quite a number of photos...will post it up later when i obtain a copy from sis. Errrm..Alden, thanks for recommending to post a vid..we didnt have it this time...nxt round will get one out...hahaha

PC Fair 2008

"Offer! Offer! OFFER!!!" , "Last call! cheap! CHeap! CHEAP!!"....This was what i shouted the whole day at PC fair. Nearly lost my voice...haha.

This is my 2nd time helping my sister at PC fair..As a 9-5 employee, I hardly had this kind of experience...honestly is fun to do it once in a while. One get to see how the business is strategy for a short term 3days sale as well as gain knowledge of the latest trend for Computers.

From what i've experienced...When i was a buyer & tour around the PC fair halls...i wish there were lesser crowd so that i can have more time to see what i want easier.

But as a sales person, when there's a bigger crowd..there comes more opportunity to grab more business & generate more money. Of course this indirectly created chances for thiefs to steal from the shelf. U will be surprised that i caught one young decent chinese man red handed of stealing the laptop skin i was selling today. He thought nobody saw him as he walk away..i grab him from behind & took it back from him. He quietly walk away after that, i wonder if he used the same tactic again on some other booth.

I've learned something else too...everyday after the fair ended, all staff will gather around to do post-mortem..checking on everyone's sales for the day as well as planning for tomorrow sales. Marking on what other competitors offered for the day & give a better offer to grab the sales from them. I can say, is really all about planning & strategies.

Well, my legs are aching & tired...is time to rest for yet another day in PC fair tomorrow. To those who plan to come on the last day...pls drop by Hall 4,k (hehe...commercial time!) I'll be there right after the service in Church.

"OFFER! OFFER! OFFER!" (hahaha... ;p)

Da Vinci Code alike???

I was surprised to see this article below in one of the online petition website. Slowly Koreans are claiming one after another the Chinese Cultures. Where's the originality?? Who has the rightful say about where the cultures belong?? What will the impact be in the History of humankind?? I wonder..

Stop Helping South Korean Robbing Chinese Traditional Culture Heritage

To: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

For many years, the art of fengshui has been seen as an indispensable part of Chinese traditional culture. But recently, this long standing heritage was challenged when South Korea applied to list the art as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage under its name.

South Korea succeeded in adding the Dragon Boat Festival, a celebration used to commemorate Qu Yuan, a Chinese patriot in olden times, onto the World Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2005. And now the Koreans are likely to win again. Nothing has hinted that the application will fail as the process is backed by all Korean nationals, from the country's president to the UN general-secretary.

Contrary to South Korea's zeal for applying fengshui, Chinese government still deem the art as a superstitious method to judge good or ill luck and refuse to issue official certificates to those engaged in the fengshui industry. The art of fengshui failed to be mentioned in the shortlist, which includes 35 cultural arts, that China has drawn up in preparation for next years World Intangible Cultural Heritage nomination procedure.

As Chinese, we are very disappointed with the zero reaction from the Chinese government toward the urgent situation. On the other hand, we are trying to do whatever we can to avoid this "cultural robbery" happening. We are very happy to share our cultures with everyone, it's the wealth of the whole world. However we think it's extremely disgraceful attempt on robbing it.

We appreciate it very much for UNESCO protecting and respecting the cultural heritage of humanity, however, we don't think accepting the application of South Korea listing fengshui under its name would be helpful for protecting the human cultural heritage. It would only deliver a wrong message to the world that robber could steal others heritage without punishment. We hope UNESCO would investigate the case carefully. History will not change just because one list, but truth and justice should be told to everyone.

Welcoming 2008

I celebrated my new year eve together with Han, Houn, Gary & Pooi Fern at Gary's house instead of squeezing myself in the crowd at some countdown parties. It was great dinner prepared by Pooi Fern & so nice of them waited for me till almost 9pm to start the dinner. (felt guilty coz i was at my sis hse warming party before going to Gary's hse)

We started playing cards after dinner while waiting to see fireworks when the clock struck 12midnite. The balcony at Gary's hse has a good view of few countdown locations (ie. mid-valley, Amcorp mall, Sunway Pyramid etc) , all of us stand at the balcony for about 15minutes to see fireworks slowly emerged to the sky...it was awesome....holding a cup of chinese tea & having friends around makes me less lonely from what i imagined it could be. The cards game session continued up to 330am & we decided to catch up with some sleep.

It was barely 2hrs after the sleep, all of us dragged outselves up from the cozy bed to get ready for Pacemakers New Year run. Gosh! So difficult to get myself stand up straight & look fresh. HA! in my mind was saying "padam muka Irene, main main sampai tak mau tidur..."

Nway, proceed to next scene - We arrived Tasik Perdana at slightly before 7am...many were already there getting themselves ready for the run. I took my bib & exchanged new year wishes within the group of runners before the race starts.

The run flagged off 730am sharp, men's category has to do 13.8km along the park (6 loops) whereby women's 4.8km..Adam passed me a M'sia flag to carry together while i'm running my 1st loop...haha! i've never hold a big flag on any event before, it tickles me to see how Dear "Mr.flag puts a smile to those visitors at the park whenever i passed by one. My pace was much slower than normal, partly due to lack of sleep & i felt 100tonnes; 1000tonnes maybe a lot more heavier than usual...but i enjoyed thou, told myself dont care if i'm the last to arrive, just have fun..halfway to finishing line, i still managed to catch up on the phone with Alden in UK.The clock just strucked 12mn for him overlooking the London Eye....RESULTS : true enough i was almost consider last if not b'coz the last female behind me injured her ankle...hahaha

It was a nice run, the organiser did a good job organising it. Direction marking was clearly marked with helpers station at various check point; water station with sufficient water & isotonic drink supplied; Malaysian no 1 favourite breakfast aka Nasi Lemak & bananas were over provided to us.

Lucky draw started immediately after prize giving ceremony..out of 10 lucky draws; Han, Houn, Yen & I won 4 of them...haha...what a nice give for new year.

That wasn't all for new year...we went back Gary's hse again after breakfast to spent the whole afternoon at his place chit-chatting & playing cards before meeting up Little khoo, Mien Yee, Cherie & Kit for steamboat dinner at Sunway. It was the first time for Mien Yee, Cherie & Kit to this "Yuen Steamboat Restaurant". They were amused by the crowd chasing over the grilled honey chicken wings...check this video posted in youtube..is crazy! "if u are fast, u get to eat...if u are slow & small in size...sorry la!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_113zyLzto&NR=1

Well, dinner ended around 8pm. I droved home half asleep..took a quick hot showel & call the nite off. That's my new year day...eventful & memorable.