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.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Heard over the radio that Apple Ex-Founder and CEO passed away yesterday. I'm not a technology savvy person but being a lecturer I used quite a lot of references and examples in my lectures and Apple was one of the most mentioned company and I always relate the company and the founder, Mr. Steve Jobs as a leader in innovation. I stumbled upon this video and found that there are life lessons that we could all learned out of his speech. Again it reminds all of us that life is fragile, lets live to the fullness. Let's pray for the family as they dealt with the loss. As far as situation allows, I will continue to quote this company and its legendary founder.

Say NO to Corruption

Transparency International (click here for more information) is a global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption. The society publishes annual corruption perception index which measures the perceived corruption levels of public sector in 178 countries. I stumped upon the website in one of my Operation Management classes, using a score system of 0-10 with a score of 10 representing a corruption-free country, you have information on how your own country ranks in terms of this indicator. As it measures the corruption levels of the public sector, you have an idea of how corruptible or clean your government is.

While I am definitely proud to be a Malaysian, I am not proud of our score which stands at 4.4/10.0 in 2010. As far as I could recalled, it was 22 years ago that I was introduced to this practise of corruption. I was told that that in order to smoothen the process of getting my driving license I have to pay extra “coffee money”. Well, being a fresh high school level, that extra “coffee money” is not a small amount of money, by the way being a fresh converted Christian I was taught that bribing is not a right thing to do, so based on the conviction that I have I told the uncle from the driving school that I will opt for the normal route, that is pay for my driving classes on the frequency basis (RM12.00 per class) and I will only pay the exact amount of the cost of the practical test which was RM50.00. I passed the theory test, attended 10 practical lessons and went for the practical test.

I flung my first test by knocking the pole during side parking and taking the wrong route during the driving test, obviously there goes my RM50.00. I was determined to pass my test, so after a month I registered for the test again, paid another RM50.00 and passed both my parking and driving test. While majority got their license by paying the package price, I’m somehow pleased with my decision that I got mine the clean way. That is my first taste against corruption.

As time passed I realized that there were many other “coffee money” packages out there, the package to clear your car summons, package to get documents approved by certain authorities, festivities package, package to smoothen 1001 type of applications…… the list goes on. This mentality is not just happening in the public sector, as I started to work in the private sector I came across sales people asking for “commission” in the form of “special price arrangement” and so on.

I remembered that there was one occasion that our government tried to regain trust in the government by launching the CAT policy – Competency, Accountability and Transparency, traffic police officers were all seen wearing a tag “Don’t bribe me” with their patrol cars pasted with the same stickers. I am not sure how successful is the program but I don’t see them wearing the tag anymore, maybe another “Hangat Hangat Tahi Ayam” effort, a Malay idiom that stands for “A short term effort”. The issue of corruption is prevalent, we just have to be aware of what's is happening and open our eyes to these issues.

So the big question is…. Are we one of them, do we allow ourselves to be bribed or to bribe? We may not be one of the big timer "briber" but we may have willingly or unwillingly be part of it. I always believe if there is supply, there is demand. Stop the supply and the demand will stop. What is your decision the next time you beat a red light, litter, deal with the authorities, are you going to offer coffee money or are you willing to take up your guts, acknowledge your wrongs, accept the penalty, make the decision to do it right. Do you want to live in a country that is free of corruption where the administration is competent, accountable and transparent or do you want to live in a country where you are expected to dig deep into your pockets and pay your way out. I have made my decision 22 years ago, how about you? The next general election is coming soon, please pray and vote for a clean government.

Food for Thoughts

The other day I was listening to a radio channel and the DJs were discussing issues relating to parenting, a family consultant was invited as their guest speader and was sharing his many years of personal experience. One caller called to seek advice on rebellious teenagers. His way of answering the question is very enlightening, there is no rebellious teenagers, as they matured and seek more freedom, we just have to give more responsibilities, his concept is with freedom comes added responsibilities. The reason teenagers rebel is that parents only set restrictions or simply say "NO" to the freedom sought by them but failed to communicate the extra responsibilities that come with those pair of "wings". My eldest will turn 13 in a very short time, I'm praying hard that the foundation that we've laid for the girls will be able to guide and uphold her in the paths ahead.

Mama I love you!

The new semester had just started, as usual during the first week of the semester , blood pressure shoot up, heart pulse increase and I was like a mad lady attending to over 300 students and at the same time juggling all the consultation sessions in between the classes. Yesterday after such session I was totally drained out and suddenly I had an incoming sms with the following message (I copied 100%):

Sender: Mil (from mother in-law's handphone)
ma ma ^ ^ mummy, how are you? I am good. i love you (by emily)

Well, suddenly my heart was at peace, pressure went down and I grinned while looking at the message again and again, my 7 year old girl sure made my day.

I replied with the following message:

Mummy is good and fine, love you too :)

Sweet slumber

I thank God that the girls still wanted me to sleep with them every night even now that they are already 9 and 7 respectively. The rule of the arrangement is - I can leave their room only after they fell asleep. Yesterday as usual after our devotion time together and prayer, we snugged into our blankets, turned the lights off and closed our eyes. To my surprise both girls came real close to me hugging me and claimed that they were both scared but at the same time they were happily giggling away. After checking out the reason for their fear, I realized they were just finding excuses to hug me and sort of to get my attention, anyway I was just so happy to be sandwiched in between the girls and three of us dozed of in no time. That's the reward of motherhood. As time flies I know one day they'll probably kick me out of their room to take control of their own privacy or when they outgrew and their two single beds can no longer accomodate three and sometimes four (+ daddy) of us. As for now I think I'll sleep with them as long as they want me to.

Mission Trip to Kampung Serundung Laut (2nd – 7th June 2011)

God has enable 10 of us to go for this trip, for I believe that it is not that we are able but it is our availability that matters to God. God has proven this again and again in the Bible, He uses ordinary people to do His extraordinary work, it is afterall His trip not ours.

Though we faced mutltiple hurdles (our flight was cancelled, our boat’s motor refused to work, our plan was turned totally upside down) but God is mighty, through all the uncertainties God let us see that He is in control.

Though we may not be able do accomplish much but through each of the members’ sharing, we can see God at work in each of us, in each of the circumstances and in each of the lives of the natives there.

What did I learned out of this trip?
The natives may be lack of materially but they are rich spiritually
Unconditional love - Pastor Janaring who a native himself heeds God’s calling to bring change into the lives of the people, through his ministry and the support of churches, the village now has water supply and a school is established
Serving – Jesus Himself came to serve and not to be served, as I collected the plates and bowls from my team members after dinner with the intention to serve them by washing them, I was unaware that in front of me there are already brothers and sisters who wanted to serve me and as a result they washed my plates instead
Obedience – God simply wants us to obey, when we wanted so much to go our way, God just wanted us to be still and acknowledge that He is God
Fairness and justice – We may think that God is not fair, afterall we are all human why the native’s needs are being neglected, why they have no access to a sound education, basic medical assistance etc. To these we have no answers but God is fair and just, all things work for good to those who love Him, He will provide in His time.

And finally…….. understanding – Why rural folks sat on the veranda most of the time and chat their time away? Because there is no better things to do – with no electricity, TV and other electrical gadgets, the veranda is the most cooling place both in the day and night time and that’s exactly what we did, happily chatting our time away, staring at the bright stars, sharing God’s goodness with each other and simply enjoying His creation. God is indeed good.

For photos of our trip, please click here.

"Owls"

To keep the girls occupied and to stop them from asking me "What do we do now, mom?", "What to do next, mom?", we made owls, idea came from a section from the STAR paper that gave very clear instruction of some DIY project using recycle materials. Well, above is the outcome, in the middle is Mama owl and sandwiched by Jeh Jeh owl and Mei Mei owl. Made entirely from recycled material - egg shells, newspaper, recycle paper, plastic egg container, some poster colours and empty toilet paper roll. They are now proudly displayed on top of our piano.

Be thankful, prayerful

I have not been reading the paper and online for the past few days but heard of the earthquake that happened last Friday. When I logged into youtube yesterday evening only I realized how massive the destruction of the earthquake cum Tsunami in Sendai, Japan. God is good that my brother did not plan for his business trip earlier, he booked his ticket to Tokyo on the 14th Mar flight.

I told my children and showed them videos of the earthquake and told them how fortunate we are to be in Malaysia, thus we should give thanks. We prayed for the victims yesterday night. Men can rebuild the city but only God can healed the hearts of men.

Emily girl

Emily turned 7 on the 22nd Feb 2011, thought of capturing her milestone all over again. Time indeed flies, my younger girl has grown up indeed and all I want to do is to thank God for her over and over again and of course for my elder girl too. I always reminded them that I love both of them just the same, no more no less, so they don't have to fight, argue just to get my attention and love.

Emily at 3 months old


Emily on her 1st birthday


Emily on her 3rd birthday


Emily on her 4th birthday


Emily on her 5th birthday


Emily, taken when she was six


Emily 7th birthday

What's in your name?

English Name – “Elaine” stands for bright, light or radiant and I remember my French lecturer used to comment that it the French variant for “Helen”. So I’m a bright shining radiant star!

Chinese Name – Middle character represents wisdom and last character represents beauty as the way of writing is synonym to a type of flower, of course the first character bears the family sir name.

So here I am, a bright shining radiant star with wisdom and beauty. Ha ha what say you ?

The girls sure grew up fast!

Blogging time has been replaced by "checking the kid's homework" time nowadays, since they have replacement class today and daddy is away for training in KL, I found myself being pampered with luxurious "me" time... hmm... thought of blogging about the girls (ages since I last blogged about them).

I caught them in action while decorating my cake this morning and took this random picture of both of them, they sure grew up fast and from the picture you can see who is the cheeky one.

Michelle is in Primary 3 this year, as always she is independent with all her homework, she make up her own bed now, I trained her to wash her own dishes, school shoes, keep her study table and room neat and nice and she has been an easy going girl all this while. However recently we observed that she can be quite impatient with her little sis, exercising her authority as the elder sister e.g. bossing and ordering her around :) She has been playing the piano quite a lot nowadays, I can see she's enjoying music and gifted too, her hair is over shoulder length now and she intend to keep it as long as mummy did not oppose to it. For the past months she has been especially clingy to daddy and it's a joy to see both father and daughter bond so well (At least release this mummy and mummy can work on Emily..)

Emily don her new uniform and is in Primary 1. She is quite independent and glad that she blends very well with her new school and friends. One thing we got to insist that she needs to follow the school rules e.g. no bling-blings and fancy clips to school, definitely no toys or what so ever treasure that she can bring to school. I believe she tried to smuggle in even though we told her not to.. anyway I already told her the consequences and it's time she learned. Still in her care free and creative nature and I think that the new KSSR syllabus really suits her, less homework, more activity based and less exam oriented. Overall she's doing quite well. Following the sister's foot steps she is also planning to keep her hair long (as long as she ties them to school) and has repeatedly stressed that no scissors shall be lay upon the tip of her hair. I think she's inspired by Rapunzel. Now Emily is still very latched to me and is real glad that she can have me all by herself (when the jeh jeh cling on to the father).

As I watched then grow, it's amazing how God has lead them thus far, He is indeed gracious to us. Only God knows the mistakes that we made as parents. As I lay down with them every single night, I'm blessed to hear them praying and thanking God for their everyday lives. I stand in witness and declare that God is indeed good... all the time :) He loves us not because of who we are but because of who He is. Now isn't that really something?

CNY

CNY - time for reunion with loved ones near and far, time for bonding, time to recollect blessings for the past year and new hope for the new year. It has been nearly 3 years since mum left us, we miss her as always, her love, passion, joy and spirit of CNY will be felt by all of us. We will continue with the tradition that mum has passed down - spring cleaning, hang Ang Pow packets on the bamboo plants, cook those signature dishes during CNY though we got to admit it will never taste 100% as mum's, serve tea during the 1st day of CNY before we get to touch our Ang Pows, celebrate dad's birthday during the 1st week of CNY and one little tiny secret - parading our new year clothes through a mini fashion show... Blessed Chinese New Year and may you have a meaningful and wonderful time with loved ones!

My last 30 something birthday

I started this blog in Sept ’07 and for those who have been following my blog since its inception, initially it is named “Thirty something”. As time passed, I realized the name may not be applicable as I aged so “Lessons of life” is more appropriate.

I celebrated my last 30 something birthday last Thursday. For the very first time I took a day off from work, so did hubby. We went for a brief cycling trip at Gertak Sanggul, went for a drive to hubby’s new project location, confirmed on a garden set (the long over due item hubby owed me). By then it was approaching noon, we settled the children’s lunch, washed up and sent the girls to school.

Next we headed to a nice cozy restaurant for lunch, did some shopping, visited a friend and dropped by at our favourite “jati” furniture shop to select the long over due dressing table. Hubby’s pocket was definitely in pain that day. The day ended with lots of kisses and hugs from my two princesses.

As I reflect my life I thank God for His providence and guidance. I realized that without Him I would be a totally different person and would be experiencing a totally different journey of life. Life is not a bed roses but He is there to guide and carry me each step of the day. I would like to quote again what I shared during our Church’s Christmas celebration – “The family that I was brought up in, the siblings that I have, my choice of faith, life-partner, career and all life’s decisions, I realized that none of the incidences that happened in my life were merely coincidence, instead all of them were specially crafted by my Creator for in Psalms 139:13-14, it says:

“For you created my inmost being,
You knit me together in my mother’s womb,
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful”

I thank God for a wonderful 39 full solid years of my life and by God’s grace looking forward for many years to come.