She has been with us for 8 years. She has never complained nor grumbled and worked quietly even when she fell sick. She has taken great care of my 2 Js, cooked nutritious food for our family, maintained our house well, treated all my guests who stayed in or dined in or just visit us with great respect.

For working so diligently, she got her annual increment, year-end bonus and a paid-trip back home every 2 years. She gets “ang-pow” during CNY and whenever we have visiting guests, they never leave without giving her a gift or an “ang-pow” for doing their laundry, cleaning their room etc. A guest once commented that staying in our house is like staying in a five-star hotel. I guess it’s not because my house is luxurious, it is more of the excellent “customer service”. haha..

Today, my loyal domestic helper Saropah goes back to her “kampung” Brebes, which is hundreds of km away from Jakarta, for good. She left this afternoon with a very heavy heart, and as I waved to her at the airport, I could see tears welled up in her eyes. She has no choice but to go back due to family commitment. Afterall, we have been a good employer to her, and before she came, she had heard horror stories of the Malaysian employers. Likewise, we have heard horror stories about maids and would never have the confidence to get another helper as efficient as her.

Selamat jalan, Kak Saropah.. till we cross path again..

I have been hibernating from my blog for the past few days. So many things to write but do not know how to start and I may have to hibernate for the next couple of days… Blogger block I guess.. haha.. coming up I will be writing a review about the 1st Kids Leadership Convention, BookFest @ Malaysia… I will also share my humble opinion on why we should/should not send our children to tuition centers and enrichment centers.. stay tuned..

Meanwhile, have a great weekend ahead.. It’s a Merdeka long weekend.. Have fun everyone and don’t leave your house without a hand sanitizer!

I was running a quick errand at Mid Valley when a Lancome (a French premium cosmetic brand) sales promoter caught my attention and offered to do a skin analysis for me for free. It must have been like 10 years? since I last did a skin analysis.. I am very kiasu when it comes to beauty & aging..haha.. to the extent that I once contemplate to do Botox..hahaha..

Ok, back to the skin analysis. The funny-looking machine claimed that it can check pigmentation, wrinkles/lines, pores sizes, hydration etc according to age group. To my surprise, I got a Perfect Score! Excellent pigmentation, very minimum wrinkles, excellent pores size and good hydration. The beauty advisor was actually promoting Lancome latest product the Genifique. But with my excellent score, she had no “excuses” to promote the product to me, haha! thanks to USANA Sense Skincare range for my perfect skin! Looks like I need no Botox! Yay!!

This piece of news raise eyebrow and is really mind-boggling..

KUALA LUMPUR: A high-profile trial is shaping up with the husband of celebrity TV presenter Daphne Iking accusing a corporate figure of “enticing” his wife.

The man has dragged the managing director to court under Section 498 of the Penal Code for “enticing or taking away or detaining with a criminal intent a married woman

Read more details here.

As usual, a nosy me google search for more information about enticing and I chance upon this interesting blog entry. What baffle me is that if a man entices a married woman, he may be charged under this particular penal code but if a woman entices a married man, she will get away away scot-free. Eh.. why so unfair one? It literally means it is OK for a woman to “seduce” a married man but not OK for a man to “seduce” a married woman. What a sexist penal code!! If I am a legislator, I would make sure that it is a serious crime to entice a married PERSON regardless of genders!

This topic keeps me wondering why would a person entices another person’s spouse? Probably that’s another story for another day….

Nothing is Impossible. He achieves what noone in the world has ever achieve. An amazing 9.58s and 19.19s in the 100m and 200m sprint new world record holder! And it wasn’t a smooth sailing achievement. Usain Bolt has proven that nothing is impossible as long as we set a goal, strategise and work hard towards achieving our goals!

“I keep telling you guys my AIM is to become a legend. I don’t think about records. I don’t put myself under pressure. I know what to do and I go and execute. I keep saying ANYTHING is POSSIBLE. You WORK hard, you TRAIN hard. I still train very hard and running fast races doesn’t change that.” - Usain Bolt, the electrifying 100m & 200m world record holder.

I switched my mobile phone provider to DIGI a couple of months ago. Yesterday, I received a call from somebody claiming to be from MAXIS, let me just call him Mr. A. The conversation went like this:

Ring..ring..

Me : Hello..

Mr. A : Is that Ms. Tan Yek Nee?

Me : Yes.. who is this?

Mr. A : I am calling from MAXIS and would like to introduce a new package for you. (1st rule broken, didn’t introduce himself ie his name and didn’t ask if I was free to talk?)

Me : What package?

Mr. A : Are you under any contract with DIGI?

Me : What contract are you talking about?

Mr. A : I mean..errr.. did DIGI give you any free phone and you are contracted to keep the DIGI line for a certain period of time?

Me : No, I am not under any contract.

Mr. A : That’s good. You see, from your bill, we can see that your calls are made less than RM30 per month and you are taking the RM50 per month from DIGI.

Me : Wait a minute. How would you have access to my bill? (2nd rule broken : He should have asked me how much I spent on calls, rather than telling me how much money I spent even if he did know. He “leaked” out the information that he has access to my bills).

Mr. A : I can see that even though you made calls for less than RM30, but you are paying RM50. You see, MAXIS has got a RM30 per month package, very attractive one.

Me : DIGI also has RM30 package, I am thinking of changing to that package.

Mr. A : Aiyak.. DIGI RM30 package calls are more expensive. Per call they charge you 20 sen whereas in MAXIS, we only charge you 18 sen if you made calls from MAXIS-MAXIS. I can see that most of your calls are made to a MAXIS line. You can save a lot of money one. (I almost fell off the chair, he was literally ”reading” my phone bill). 

Me : Wait, wait.. do you know the reason why I changed to DIGI, that’s because of MAXIS poor service! I can list down the 101 poor service but it will take a lot of your time. 18 sen or 20 sen per call does not make any difference to me, but good quality and service make a HUGE difference! (3rd rule broken : In the beginning of our conversation, he never bother to find out why I switched to DIGI)

Mr. A : Oh like that ah.. If like that, then never mind.. Thank you ah.. (he hung up the phone abruptly)

What tickled me was that for the last 1 year, I was using MAXIS RM80 package and calls made were often less than RM30, why didn’t they offer me the RM30 package or their RM50 to “save” my money? By the way, I absolutely think that MAXIS should train their tele-marketing staff some basic marketing skills. Be interested, not interesting in your potential prospect. I have been patient with Mr. A. Most people would have put down the phone from the moment he said he was offering some package.

Honestly speaking, I wasn’t paying much attention to the A (H1N1) pandemic. Afterall, millions of people die every year due to flu-related complications. That was 2 weeks ago. The sudden increase in the confirmed H1N1 deaths gives me goosebumps. And last night, about 11.30pm, I received an sms from Little J’s principal, saying that as a safety precautionary measure, Little J’s school will be closed till 1st Sept. (Officially school holidays is from 24-31st Aug).

In the sms, the principal said that one of their students who is having high fever, has a sister whom is confirmed to be H1N1 positive. The sister happens to be studying in Big J’s school. The principal did the right thing, although it was an unpopular decision, to curb the spread of the flu among very young children. 

Big J’s school, on the other hand, closes 4 classes. I stop sending Big J to school, being a kiasi parent, I do not want to take any chance. What baffle me is that what the heck is our government doing? Why is there a sudden increase in deaths? Japan, one of the much earlier countries which reported to have cases of H1N1 has a death rate per infection ratio of 1 in 3660 while Malaysia is 1 in 63!! Read here for statistics update. I remember reading about .Japan closing schools etc.

An alarming unconfirmed news saying that a teacher in a school in Subang Jaya died because of H1N1 and the school still operates as usual.  What is our goverment waiting for? And when I spoke to a few parents, I was surprised that a lot of parents are still ignorant of H1N1, ignorant how contagious it is and how to prevent. There are parents who still send their children to school despite the children having fever and flu. Typical “tak-apa” (couldn’t care less) Malaysian attitude!! In fact, last Saturday, when I sent both J to their drama class, the teacher was having a bad flu and she was NOT wearing any mask! That’s the mentality of the majority Malaysian!

God bless Malaysia!

I still remember vividly when I was in my teens, hitting 20 was like.. eh.. I am getting “old”, if I don’t get a steady boyfriend, I am going to be a spinster for the rest of my life! Yes, I found my first boyfriend (who eventually became my hubby) when I turned 21. When I was about to hit 30, I was like..my goodness..I am going to be 30 years old and I better get married and have kids, else the kids will be still young by the time I retire! Yes, I got married at age 30 and Big J was produced 13 months later..

And today, I officially hit the BIG 4. It is a boost to the ego that I am always told that I look much younger than my age thanks a zillion to USANA Sense skincare line.. hey.. I have gotten used to getting admiringly stares from men and women, young and old..haha! On the serious note, as we age gracefully, our mindset change. Our priorities change. There seem to be so many things to do, but I can’t seem to complete them.. Stop Procrastinate, this message keeps poping out! Just do it!

Yes, life has just begun. Live it to its fullest in good health and happiness.

Last Saturday, I sent Big J to his school for his first Robotic lessons. As usual, I would normally accompany him to the class to drop him off for any first lesson, and subsequent lessons, I would normally drop him off at the school gate. We were 5 minutes early and we saw his classmate waiting alone outside the computer classroom on the 1st floor of the school. The classroom was locked. We waited and 10 minutes later, we saw another 2 mothers with 2 students apparently also coming for the class. We waited and waited and there were no sign of any teacher. One of the mothers called the teacher and was furious to find out that they had rescheduled the class. Well, as to why the class was rescheduled and we were not informed, that’s another story for another day.

My son’s classmate, let me just called him S, was alone.

Me : How did you come to school just now?

S : My dad dropped me.

Me : I can help you to call your dad to pick you up..

S : I don’t know my dad’s phone number.

Me : Err… what about your mum’s number?

S : I don’t know my mum’s number too.

Me : ????? Errrrr.. your house phone number?

S : Don’t know lah…

Me : Whose number can you remember? Or is there any number that I can call to reach your parents?

S : You can call my number, it’s 017-XXXXXXX. ( I almost pengsan!)

Me : Like that ah… errr.. do you know your way back home? I can send you home..

S : Yes auntie, please send me home.

I taught my 2 J to remember 3 phones numbers ever since they learned how to talk. They memorise my mobile number, my husband’s and the house phone number. I dread to think what could have happened to the 2 boys had I did not accompany Big J to the class. I know that Big J would have at least asked to borrow someone’s phone to call me to pick him up. But what about S? He would have to wait 2 long hours for his parents to pick him up! All parents/guardians should teach your child to remember at least ONE phone number in case of emergency…

Little J will be going to Primary One next year. Last week, I brought him to the Chinese Primary school near our house to register him for the school. It is a big school compared to the Kindergarden he is attending now. He was  excited to go to the new school and I took the opportunity to walk him around the school. 5 minutes after walking around, we heard tons of footsteps and saw a bunch of students coming out of their classrooms to go home. Apparently, they were some Primary 6 students who stayed back in school for extra lessons.

As we walked to our car, we saw 3 boys playing and one of the boys was handled quite roughly by his 2 friends. Immediately I can feel Little J squeezing my hand very tight and moving very close to me. He started to point to the boys and said, “Mummy, look! Those are bullies! I am very scared of them. I don’t want to come to this school!” I explained to him that the boys were only playing and not bullying each other and assured him that he needs not to be afraid of going to the school. Little J has always been a very timid and introvert child compared to Big J who has no problem adapting to any new environment.

Talking about school bully, my heart sank when I read this piece of news about a Year One student being bullied in school. I can’t imagine a 7 year old boy using a blade to inflict pain on his classmates. The bully really needs help. I am not jumping into conclusion, but a young child will not be violent unless he has been bullied either at home or elsewhere, or he has seen someone bullying another person. Monkeys see, monkeys do…. I hope the school authorities will visit his home to find out why he turned so violent..