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.