Since Aunty Kambing from Planet Kambing tagged me, I will oblige!

10 things that make me happy:

1) Mini-D various sleeping poses ( he has lots)

2) Getting a beauty treament i.e. pedicure, facial, massage, etc.

3)Not having to go into the office for the past 2 months

4) and being paid for it~

5) home-cooked food everyday (staying with parents during maternity)

6) Mini-D waking up with smiles and laughters

7) Taking an afternoon nap next to Mini-D

Shopping online! ( with confinement, this is a real treat! )

9) Alex suprising me with a gift! (yeap, belated birthday gift and probably a ‘birthing’ gift! )

10) Having a super supportive family!

Don’t think will tag anybody, but would like to thank Aunty Kambing for asking me to do this.  It brightens up the day knowing that we are blessed with so many loved ones!

On Saturday, thanks to my very-adventurous colleague, Seng Ming, we went to this conservation centres for Asian elephants right in the middle of our Titiwangsa Range. On the way of course, we had this great guru of Malaysian foods, Adrian to lead us to the not-so-tiny town of Bentong for wan tan mee. As ordinary as it sounds, this wan tan mee as far as Alex is concerned is the equivalent of the Sitiawan kampuang! Haha.

Upon reaching the conversation centre, we were quickly ushered into the office where we got our entrance stickers. The first activity on the itinerary was a video showing how translocation of elephants are being done here in Malaysia. Translocation is basically needed when new lands are open up (sadly for oil palm estates) and the elephants habitat is being encroached. Due to lack of space, these elephants usually wonders into the oil palm estates and creating havoc for the plantation owners. This is when the team from this conservation centre will do the translocation of the ‘trouble-makers‘, usually the whole herd, to Taman Negara forest reserve.

After the educational video session, the elephants came out in a parade into the river for a nice cool bath. This elephant here is the grand-dame of them all. She’s 70 years old and a native of India. I cannot remember what the host was commenting how this elephant came to Malaysia but with the age comes size. She’s the biggest one of them all too. A quick comment from Alex, ” So kesian la this elephants, being a grandmother and all still have to come out and perform monkey shows!”

My favourite is this little fella. He’s such a poser. When there were no one around, he did not do anything. The moment someone whips out a camera he starting posing and all! Such a cute little jumbo! But behind the jovial nature, this little creature actually has quite a sad past. The rangers found this fella left for dead after being attacked by tigers. If you look really close, you’ll realize that the little dude has got no tail.

Then of course, the keepers being to wash the elephants and prepare them to greet the visitors to the centre. You can see that these elephants are very use to humans already.

After they are cleaned, it is time to get up close and personal with them. We were allowed to feed them with various fruits such as papayas, bananas and watermelon. This fella that I am posing with is terribly greedy. When I went close to him, he started ’searching’ me for fruits! You can see that I was terrified of him!

The elephant ride was another exciting activity in the itinerary. This elephant that I am riding on is Mawar, a 9 year old. Doesn’t this picture looks like I am running off with the mahout??  LOL !

All in all, the trip created a lot of awareness in terms of the plight of these gentle creatures. We humans are sometimes really too selfish when it comes to development of our civilization that we forget the planet is for all Earthlings to share.

After such a long absence from work, today is the first day of the Year of the OX that all of the folks in my factory is coming back to work. Things are moving slowly and before long, we are going to have a long weekend due to Thaipusam. My colleagues jokingly said that we are only work at 50% capacity the whole of this week!

Just want to wish a big congratulations to Kevin and his lovely wife, Suet San in welcoming their first born. Hey pal, you’re the first in our house to get a baby! Cannot believe that there is a lil’ Snow!

Everyone seems to be trying to get their hands on the new iPhone 3G.

Unfortunately for us in Malaysia, this phone has yet to be launched. My friends who are interested in this phone have been really keeping tabs on it. Hong Kong and Singapore are the two closest places that have been surveyed and the good news is that you can actually buy this phone unlocked. These searching for unlocked cell phones makes the whole experience even more exciting for the buyer I guess.

I really got to take my hat off to the marketing folks over at Apple. No matter what kind of product they launch from Mp3 players to their super canggih computers, they seem to have found the winning formula in pushing this products to the market. Sell at a premium price with a seemingly superior design/technology and horn a huge following to their ‘cult’. Maybe I should plan my next class (marketing) assignment on the folks over at Apple. Know anyone ??

While having lunch with my colleagues yesterday, and one of them was lamenting that his wife was purchasing some new hair clips and hair accessories which cost around the RM20-RM40 range. Of course these aren’t the conventional plastic clips.

Some how from there, it brought usto the topic of toys. Toys are mainly stuff that will make you happy while using it. Girls likes to doll up, therefore their ‘toys’ are usually cosmetics products, perfume, clothes, accessories, shoes and the list goes on and on. Likewise for the guys, their toys are more ‘engineering in nature’; remote control helicopters, cars, boats, light sabers!

So this is the problem, when a lady goes ’shopping’, our guys ( for those married and attached) will non-stop about us spending too much money to feed our shopping need but on the other hand, the boys’ toys a huge spending at one go, is alright, it has high ROI because it’ll be using this x number of years down the road! The great argument on “small spending on many items” or the “big spending on a few items.

On a more personal note, I am now quite into the whole crochet/knitting revolution and do spend quite a bit on getting yarns. Alex was a bit grumpy at the beginning, but he now he sees this is as something that is good (I brought him to shops to show him the prices of hand-made goods). Alex on the other hand spends more on books. I guess, it is not so much on getting our toys but understanding that we need to give our partners a bit of space to indulge in their little hobbies!

Today I had lunch with some of my colleagues from my former company. All of us have already left the company and have been pursuing different things in terms of our career and our lives!  It has always been a tradition that we eat Bak Kut Teh for the plain and simple reason : Cyberjaya don’t have any Bak Kut Teh stalls! Nearest eatery serving this savoury soupy dish is in Dengkil and Serdang.

Anyway, after lunch today, I realise how much I have changed from the time that I was a fresh engineer hanging out with these folks to being an employee at a MNC.  Of course at that time also I was single and a care-free soul. Now, I am married and pursuing a post graduate degree; read as very irritable. 

These guys on the other hand still were pretty much the same as they were before. Still doing the same things that we did while with the old company but of course in a more senior position. The unmarried remained unmarried. The married is still exactly the same he was. But being again with them albeit the brief time, made me realize that the move out of the sector(design engineering in a small firm)  was the right thing to do!

Warning: Camwhore post

Am so happy. I am no longer lonely in this category. More and more of my yearmate are getting hitched! Isn’t that just great?

(more…)

Before I begin, perhaps a little history of my up-bringing is needed. My parents were educated in missionary schools when the foreign nuns and monks were actually running it. Therefore, their upbringing is strongly influenced by Western culture. On top of that, my dad joined the Royal Malaysian Navy which also have a very strict rule about being prim and proper while my mom, is the typical strict nurse you see on most movies and TV shows. So it is no surprise that my brothers and I were subjected to rather no-nonsense almost draconian kind of rule while growing up.

So let’s come back to the main topic. What I did notice is that my notion of good manners is rather different from that I observed from my peers (read as those within ±10 years), is rather different.

Case One:
During one of my post-grad classes,we had this wonderful English lecturer who pretty much looked like jolly Father Christmas (he is that big!) relating to us one of his experiences at a very posh restaurant back in England  or as he puts it, ” Most of the young fellows would probably have to spend his whole month’s wages just to dine here”. The waitress there was being very cheerful and chummy with its patrons went to serve my lecturer and said, “Well, darlings, what can I get you this evening?” A friendly greeting? My lecturer was rather piqued by that and then said, ” You don’t darling me and I am not your darling. You will address me properly!”

So this is the thing. Many of my classmates were rather taken aback by the reaction of my lecturer. They felt that there is nothing wrong with that but I on the other hand, actually agreed with my lecturer. Terms of endearment like that should not be used in an establishment such as that or even in work places where we hear it so often. Perhaps in a pub or another establishment of that sort, it would have been acceptable. Some of my classmates mentioned that perhaps our lecturer was old-school that is why he is offended. My opinion: The waitress just did not know the proper etiquette.

Case Two:

A group of us were attending some talk in a hall with fixed seating. A friend plonks himself on the seat and raised his legs with shoes on, and rests them on the armrests of the seat in front. Call me nosy, strict {insert any names} but in any circumstances, we should not do that. It is not only rude and bad manners but also very inconsiderate. Imagine, when you rest your arm, you find that your clean white cotton shirt has dirt stains just because someone needs to rest his feet on that armrest. Of course me being me, I lacked the finesse in addressing it and simply said, ” Hey, you should not do that. It’s rude!” This is part where everyone got a bit shocked including the person in question. Another friend then proceeds to relate that there is nothing wrong with that. Some people are offended but in his opinion, it is acceptable.

In the two cases related, what do you really think? Too rigid in keeping so-called manners? Do you agree or disagree. Would really love to hear from you.