I'm back!

There is a request from my loyal "fan" that I should start writing my blog again, I have been blog hibernating for a while now.


So what's new? Yeah last two weeks I officially joined the "Smart" community, courtesy of hubby and after much consideration, finally he got me a Samsung Tab and a Samsung Galaxy smart phone at one go. It's a double pampering from him.

As expected the girls got hold of the tab and handle it with dexterity and started downloading it with God knows whatever games that they knew of. So this mummy is exercising her mother authority to control the usage and access to it else gone case. I must acknowledged that the tab came in real handy, yesterday I googled some queries from Michelle on her homework and I can get the answer at the tip of my fingers, must teach the girls how to put it to good use.

Now what about the Smart phone? The extend of connectivity you have with your existing contacts is amazing but with the extensive pool of people that now you can contact with, I realized it created another problem.... superficiality in your friendships. It's nice to get in touch but I would want to maintain connectivity with those few close friends that I have, lest I fall into the "hi and bye" or "touch and go" friendships. So I will limit my connection with a few close contacts.

Life at forty so far is..... indescribable, experiencing changes emotionally, spiritually and physically. I stumbled upon this phrase at my colleague's cubicle which sounded like this - "We cannot do much about the length of our life but we can sure do something with the depth and breadth of it", so I'm learning to just do that... everyday add a bit of depth and breadth to my life, God's gracious gift to me. May you do the same :)

My faith tomorrow

Amos wrote in an sms this evening:

Would be my great pleasure if you are kind enough to join me for a simple dinner tomorrow night? Propose at 7.30pm.

Elaine replied:
Invitation accepted

The girls' reaction when I announced that I got a date tomorrow night:

"Ah, that's not fair... it's your birthday and we want to spend it with you, daddy can't have you all by himself" (with their sour papaya face)

So... what do you think would be the outcome tomorrow?
a) I get to go out with my date
b) I get to go out with my date and two lamp posts
c) We all stay home and watch Barbie Christmas CD

2012

Happy new year! 2011 has been a great year with God's grace and mercy upon me and my family. Looking forward to another great year ahead and the big 4, some of my new year resolutions for Y2012 are:

Spiritual - Read the whole bible through, love God more through obedient service
Physical - Exercise at least 3 times a week, each time at least 45 minutes
Family- Spent quality individual time with the girls and the man of my life
Social - More friend's time, trip to NZ

May 2012 brings extra color to your life, whatever the painting going to turn out be, I just know it'll be another blasting year! God bless!

Gifts Idea

It’s the end of the year, most of us will be busy wrapping up 2011, slow down and clearing our leaves. It’s also time to do a bit/serious reflection (depending on your situation) and also making little plans to move on. It’s also the time of the year where we will see the increase rate of wedding dinners, annual dinners, end of the year parties etc… especially with 11.11.2011 just 3 days away I believe wedding bells will be sound at every corner.
I have an upcoming wedding dinner in 2 weeks time, instead of the traditional “Ang Pow” for the couple, I will be giving the couple this:

Mr. & Mrs. Moo, the inseparable couple.

Mr. Mrs. Moo will be an ideal gift for the perfect couple. The pair can serve as a decorative item in the new couple’s bedroom and doubled as a pillow, a sweet pillow to lay down their heads after the hustle and bustle of the wedding preparation. Well the wedding is but a ceremony to mark the starting point of the journey of marriage, Mr. & Mrs. Moo can serve as a reminder that it takes two to make a marriage works, I mean real hard labour of love. I am a strong advocate that we need to personalize the gifts to our loved ones, to compliment the gift, a personal hand written message taken from 1 Corinthian 13:4-8 will be bundled with the gift, put the message into a red packet! Voila the perfect gift is ready for the happy couple! I wish I could be married again (to the same man of course!).

Oh yeah….. almost forgotten… if you are interested, please contact Ms. Joanne for a special discount at the following:
pillopetpg@gmail.com
Hp/sms her at 012-5583451
Find them at FB (pillopet penang)
Blogspot @ http://www.pillopet.blogspot.com
Comes in two sizes

If you are not a “Moo” person, below are more options, enjoy and may you find the joy of personalized giving.

Here is Moo and Hippo, personally I love these two

Froggie

Pink Bunny - Lil Emily loves this, so we got her one


White Aries the sheep - Michelle loves this, so we can't say no

Little friends - good choice for your little ones

WE WANT SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS IN ENGLISH!

“PPSMI issue closed!” This is the headline in most of our dailies today. As a parent and a lecturer I am truly saddened by the outcome but I believe the final outcome is yet final, after seeing what happen in the middle east, I am confident that the people power will speak for itself, if not now, very soon.
I have two daughters that will be affected by this decision and many millions of “Anak Malaysia” will be affected. The very first instinct as a mother is to stand up and do something. As an academician myself I believe I can do something for my children, I can give extra classes to them, converse with them in English, buy them English materials and equip them to my best ability. To the more financially sound group they can send their children to International School and eventually overseas…..……….but to many million parents out there, they are simply helpless.
Whether those who are in support of PPSMI is of the minority group or not, this simple philosophy of using English to teach both Mathematics and Science should not be debated in the very first place and I find it quite ironic that we parents have to put up so much fact and come up with petitions in order to plead our policy makers/education ministry to please give us an option, yes an option ONLY…. I find this quite pathetic.
The new schooling year is less than 2 months away, yet no concrete information is being shared with the parents. I just heard from a friend who is teaching in a SJKC that for primary school students, Science and Mathematics will only be taught in Chinese for those who are going into Standard 4 (my elder daughter’s group). Can one imagine our education system (Standard 1-3, bilingual, Standard 4-6, Chinese, Secondary 1 – 5, Bahasa and in English thereafter). Yesterday I made a trip to a local bookstore, I could hardly find Science and Mathematics books (for year 4) in bilingual and worst still no more Science and Mathematics in English for Standard 1-3 at all.
Well, if we have to fight, we have to fight… for our children and for our nation. This battle is not against individuals but unseen forces that are at work. Never have I seen such a unity among strangers , strangers who fight for a common cause, the battle is not over but in fact it is just the beginning. No one can ever doubt the extend and influence of people power of a nation. Fellow Malaysians, it is time we wake up from our slumber , be concern of what’s happening, clear our eyes and ears and ACT in whatever capacity we could.

Our 1st Overnight Camping Trip

Last weekend, together with 2 other families we went for our first overnight camping trip. The husbands were responsible on the camp site (somewhere in Gertak Sanggul) while the wives prepared food (barbeque chicken, maggi instant noodle, fried eggs, baked beans,bread, salad, snacks.....) and were put in-charge of miscellaneous arrangement. So literally we built tents, barbequed our dinner, had can food for breakfast and overnight by the beach and yeah we nearly moved half of our house over, we were quite surprised as we were well equipped with portable stove, pans, toilet rolls, mosquito repellent, “weapons” (just in case we have bad company), dish washer detergent, tiffin carriers………….. the list goes on. It was a good experience for the girls and they loved every bit of it except for the sleeping part where they have to sleep on the hard surface with no bolsters and soft toys accompanying them, but they were just too tired to complain and knocked down in less than 5 minutes. As predicted, hubby and I could hardly sleep that night (we miss our comfortable king size bed) and we re-charged by having longggg……… naps the following day (sign of aging). I encouraged those who have yet to try this out, please give it a try while your body still can take it (ha ha) and by the way, tents are easily obtained from hypermarkets and even my nine year old can put it up quite easily (can't believe it, right?). So now that we have tried camping, I wonder what's next?

Emily's short story

The girls have been reading a lot of comics recently and Emily being the creative one likes to create her own. Yesterday night while I was sorting things out on the study table, I stumbled one of her stories (with drawings). The short story sounds like this:

Once upon a time there was a poor girl....

One day she met with a fairy....
The fairy said " I will teach you how to cook so that you can can marry some day"

So the girl learned cooking from the fairy..

One day she met with a guy and they got married and live happily ever after.

Ha ha ha, isn't she cute? I don't know why she associated ability to cook with getting married, maybe she sees MIL and I always busy in the kitchen and how hubby is facinated and pleased with our cooking that she actually relates to that. What a cutie.