Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Easter Egg Hunt

Today is a national holiday. Our day off to respect the birth of Buddha.

Incidentally my children (through popular media) found out about Easter.

My youngest hid some plastic eggs around the house. This morning the 2 little sisters walked around the house looking for eggs planted everywhere by the other. I will play Round 2 with them once this round ends, because I just want to finish writing some entries & thereafter do a workout.

Children these days, due to their exposure to media, have a broad variety of vocabulary and 'derivative' experiences from western culture. At the same time, they both go to a chinese school and are able to speak & write some basic chinese. From school they pick up various cultural & especially social elements (I hope) and these would shape their outlook as they're growing up.

For the Rest of My Life

Marriage & Matrimonial Journey: Do I want to do it all over again?

Yes and Yes and Yes!

With S, I do feel that I want to.

To move forward, To make it work. To fulfil our role (What does this mean?). To make ourselves happy. To take all the good. To learn from the not-so-good. To thrive because we love each other.

I do hope that we would be able to overcome all our issues (pre-marriage) and continue to work on improvement areas (post-marriage) to last together for as long as we can.

It is our ultra-run to the n-th degree.

Dreaming the [I'm Possible] Dream

On 11 September 2018, we will be flying to Lombok and the day after, scale up Mt Rinjani... said to be one of the toughest (if not the toughest) climb in this part of the world.

I am apprehensive as usual, being the worrywart that I am.

My preparations: during this fasting month I do the daily climbs up the stairs at my office. 9 floors up & 9 floors down, and a whole lot of walking. Not much but a start to build the stamina.

Had joined a weight loss group last month too, to ensure that I am not too heavy to drag my behind up the mountain. The programme had worked quite fine, but last night I went for breaking of fast & had eaten a little bit more than usual.. then S treated me to cheese naan and tandoori.. and this morning for sahur had a small portion of chicken briyani.. AND my efforts in the past has gone on the wayside.

In a short while I have to start the cardio to burn off all these greasy stuff 😭

After Hari Raya I will continue my runs and hikes. At the same time reduce the body fat percentage and improve overall stamina. And hopefully all these will be reasonably sufficient for me to reach at least the campsite without falling flat due to extreme fatigue. Good Luck!



Malaysia Votes

On 9 May 2018 Malaysia Voted.

To say that it is a historic event is an understatement.

This piece is after-the-fact. Obviously. Because the Pakatan Harapan Government is currently ruling (our first ever change of government) and at our helm is 93 year old Prime Minister (the oldest Statesman in history). Our 7th PM who happened to be our 4th too. More of this in later entries perhaps, because I am waiting for the full Cabinet line-up to be announced.

Flashback: on the morning of 9 May I woke up, got ready and walked to the polling station which is just a stone's throw away from my house (approx. 200m away). At 7.58 am I joined the queue that had already snaked from the front gate to just a couple of metres from the back gate (approx. the line was nearly 500m in length).

Shortly after 8 am the gate opened and we went into our respective 'salurans' (voting lines numbered 1 to possibly 7, mine was Saluran 5). Then we had to wait for 1.5 hours while the queue moved along and I finally was able to cast my vote. The time on my watch was around 10.30am by the time I was done. I felt pride. Did my duty as a Malaysian.

Apparently on average around 60-70% (or more) of each constituent came out to vote. In good spirits. For Malaysia. For Once.

Let's compare this to the previous general election in 2013 (for yours truly): at 8 am the line was at the main entrance of the school & I was done in about 15 mins (from queue start time to voting time).

News report one day after: https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2018/05/10/long-queues-hot-sun-cannot-keep-voters-away-sense-of-camaraderie-all-round-as-klang-valley-folk-cast/

Google Doodle on GE2018 Day

As usual, this entry is about me, me and me... about the ink that was used for dipping our finger into before voting. It does not and cannot come off easily.

My finger- too overly dipped in ink
After a couple of hours it started getting dry and itchy, and I used a few scrubbing methods (soap, lotion, facial cream, facial scrub, body scrub) to remove it to no avail.

One video went viral, that you should dip the finger in a solution of clorox (bleach) & lime. No thank you- that will be the death of me when my finger melts into the solution. 

Then I saw another viral video- that the reside can be scratched using a more caustic material. The stone that is used to sharpen our kitchen knives. Tried that to some success.

This is after the scrubbing down using the knife sharpening stone,
which had to be done quite carefully I might add, to not tear the skin #gasp

Finally the last bit on the nail I scrubbed off using a nail buffer. 


Relative Success
Not looking too great yet, but okay. Manageable & no longer itchy. Yay!

Another friend recommended Veet (the hair removal cream) because it made it really easy to peel off the layer of ink. Perhaps I could try this one for the next election 😎.

Ookaaayy, to end on an intellectual note: Congratulations Malaysia for voting, for being patient when waiting to exercise our rights in democracy. For being brave in making a choice. For choosing what we consider is best for us and standing by the choice. For remaining calm during periods of uncertainty when the election results were withheld. For rooting for Tun M when he initiated some integration and restructuring steps. It was a proud moment to see him take his oath as PM.

The first 100 days has already begun. 20 days to be exact has passed and the beginnings of certain milestones can already be seen. To change, Malaysia must make itself great again, because we can and WE MUST!







The Royal Wedding

This event happened 10 days ago to pomp and splendour.

When royal blood married the common girl. Well apparently she is not that common & has a 16th of a droplet of royal blood from her father's side (or something like that).

Theirs may appear as a story of love that knows no bounds, love that seeks to understand & be understood, love that transcends social class.

My devil's advocate version: she is the girl that could tame Harry & embrace his naughty/ cheeky side at the same time. He chose her for the person that she is (who she has become) despite her divorcee status & who best to handle all the publicity except a Hollywood star.

The British Royal Family has come a LONG way since Wallis Simpson. [... and we probably have Camilla to thank: she was the mistress/ lover who finally became wife.. and when the Queen accepted her into their folds, nothing else tops that, so Meghan kinda had it reasonably easy.]

As with all marriages, I wish them the best as they traverse marital bliss and discover each other's idiosyncrasies, fight their battles, manage the public attention/ interest (in literally everything that they do), handle royal protocol & public image, and juggle 500 other things on their social calendar.

What is it like to marry into royalty I wonder?
I suppose that they would all have to be 200% discreet about anything and everything.
The Queen's approval (or disapproval) will be expressed without mincing any words.
They seem like a regular family (you THINK???).
Oh the royal protocol- so many things to remember! [I had read about them & even the rule of curtseying baffles me. I suppose Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is kinda lucky there are not that many people above Harry in the royal bloodline].
They cannot express themselves in any way when it comes to a political stand or make a press statement to support a cause of any kind.
No social media of any sort #gasp [how does she contact & retain her friends?].
She has to give up her career that just propelled her name to stardom [The stresses of Hollywood vs Stress-points of being married to royalty. HMMMMM, whichever shall I choose? 😏]
... and the public persona/ image that they have to manage, that many past girls were said not to have been able to handle (I could only imagine).

In short (I wanted to end this entry on a happy note), all the best to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Lovely names by the way, Duchess of Windsor, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Sussex 😍.

May they weave together the threads of love and experience and multiple other feelings, to achieve an enriched relationship. [I wish this for myself & my prince too for when we wed 😗]

P/S: Please bear with me, as I have just recently discovered blogger emojis 😀