Dear Diary;


The big 4.0. Yes. I have reached that milestone. a breakthrough in age. Alhamdullilah,  I manage to live this long. Counting my blessings until this day. A year has passed since I last wrote in. I guess this blog is meant for a yearly write up, nothing less than that which brought me to a story that I wanted to share, about my secret childhood crush I had when I was 9 years old. Hahaaaaa...you'd be surprised! Don't be!

It all started when I first moved in to Taman Desa Aman, Kuala Lumpur from Kuantan, Pahang. The year was 1984. My parents bought their first home there. Once a rubber estate, it  had been turned into a housing area. I was 7 years old back then and the thought of moving to Kuala Lumpur was not something I looked forward to. The real truth was....I hated it. I was so used to live next to the beach, in a government officer bungalow with huge compound that you could even build a swimming pool (dream goal..not checked),  befriended  the butterflies, ladybirds, caterpillar, snakes, scorpions and a cool chimpanzee (that was my friend, no kidding, it belonged to my neighbor who was a Pahang Royalty). Nevertheless, what choice did I have? NADA.

So there I  was, in Kuala Lumpur, being downgraded from the most wonderful environment and lifestyle a child could ever dream off with nothing really interesting to look forward to. Life was pretty boring in Kuala Lumpur. I did't have anywhere to go after school except playing at the house compound of a double story terrace house. I didn't have friends living nearby so my evenings were spend at the small squarish front porch, kicking some balls with my younger brothers and watering the plants. I went to an all girls school, previously in Assunta Kuantan and then in SRK Dato' Abu Bakar (1) Girls School, KL. I loved being in the girls school, I do until now coz it just gave me a sense of pride; having surrounded myself with my girlfriends. In fact, being in girls school was like a license to freedom. Freedom to do just about anything crazy, within the boundary set by our school principle of course. No 'boys', no 'you have to sit properly the boys are watching", no 'please wear proper baju kurung and not pinafores'.

Going to school was tough though. I had to wake up very early in the morning; at 5.00 am as my bus would arrive at 5.30 am. I would sleep standing (yes, I was a pro at doing that, trust me!) and I would only able to find a seat at usually the last 5 minutes before I reached school, just when  my butt was about to get the comfort rest. Life continued just the way it was for almost 2 years....and then something happened; something that brought glorious technicolor to my mundane life.

I remember the day vividly. I was 9 years old, to be exact and have made some friends with 2 Chinese siblings who lived 3 doors away.  We were busy playing badminton when a handsome Malay boy came by to join us. He looked a bit older than me. He was then followed by his younger brother, who I didn't really pay much attention to anyway. Little that I realized he was in fact my neighbor, a door away from Mrs. Chong and he had been living there for almost 2 years. I was star-struck! What the hell! Why didn't I realize that! A boy that cute would melt my heart away. What a lost of 2 boring years, I thought to myself.

Being in girls school did crazy things to your hormones. They made you more conscious with boys (only with boys that you thought you like) and made you shy away from them. I was doing just that. I realized after that day, I seldom joined the badminton game outside the house again, just because I was too shy. In the end, this handsome Malay boy took over as the new badminton player; and I was left watching from inside the house. As time passed by, I realized I had a crush on him, the boy whose name was Aizal. The feelings appeared without me realizing,  and it came out of the blue moon. Was it because of his looks? Definitely, he was the most handsome boy I've seen so far, or was it because of his charm? I didn't think so because he seemed too shy to even start a conversation. Nevertheless, I don't know till now whether the feelings that I had for him is mutual. Call it Puppy Love, or Monkey Love, I didn't care. Because all I knew was I was falling for him.

There were times when my mom would cook nice dishes, and would sent me instead of my sister to deliver the cooked food to his house. Little too shy, I braved myself to ring on his door to deliver them, managing to get a glimpse of him and that would be enough to make me smile the whole week. It was not so long after his parents came to my parents house and broke the news that they planned to transfer to a different neighbourhood, and overhearing the conversation, I rushed and locked myself in my room, only to have my self buried on the pillow crying my eyes out.

Well hello there

2015, fast forward, tadaaaaaa..it's already 2016, September and a lot has changed since then. Number one, I get a year younger (still in denial stage, a year shy from 40 years old @#$^&), a bit of wrinkles surrounding my eyes, hair drops, knee pain but one thing stays the same, my uplifted spirit to stay ahead in everything that I do.

The last time i blogged was about me starting a business. Fast forward again, the business seems to be at halt. Many aspect of my career has changed since then. Nope, I did not get a promotion, although I was supposed to get one, and the mgmt 'pinky pink yes i promise but nope no promotion with 5 people reporting under you and tight dateline ahead'...booooooooo..I'm now leading the Value Unlocking Program (VUP) for Generation Division, focusing on redesigning the Generation Future State. Complex matter it is indeed. A very tough role to play, and being a safety girl at heart, strategic mgt was never my thing, i don't even want to go close to it. The first time i reported duty, I was called in for a central meeting. Mind you, the words that these people use are like alien to me "DNA - who cares about DNA, I'm not a doctor by profession anyway", what else, oh!oh! " sources of values - The only value i care about is the value for money i get when i buy tons of lipstick" and the list goes on.

So today marks the 26th week leading the VUP team (yes, we are that accurate in determining the exact time since we reported duty) , and for the first time since we reported duty, we finally met the Officer Number 1, naah! Not the PM, it's our TNB CEO to report the progress of the VUP. I'll be lying to I say I'm not scared. Not because of him though, but due to the fact that I was not really mentally, truly believing the content of our own presentation. We had to be present the aspiration, the design options and the way forward. I have not really anchored my thoughts to mentally absorb all the contents of the presentation, not to mention that number of slide changes we need to go through right until 5 minutes before the presentation itself.

Half of my team, smiling (pretending to smile) for the camera. Say cheese!

The one thing i hate with these sort of meetings, there is not a single smile, no jokes, why so serious guys

So, anyway, back to reality, the outcome turns out more grey that I have ever expected. We thought it will provide us with ease to move ahead with our next plan, but it looks like we have to hold on to the plans until the next direction is set. God works in many ways, so I take it as His way of guiding and helping us in this time of complexity.

Rain or shine, work has to go on. What I can conclude is, having your own business, although a lot more stressful, brings you greater joy coz you're able to decide your own path and goals.  But in an organisation as big as the one I'm working now, it's such a headache. Tons and tons of presentations, syndications, paperwork, presentation, presentation, presentation,  OMG!It really tests you as a person.

Anyway, I'm glad it's all over temporarily. Phewwwwww! Although it might not be for long!

Mid 2015 with Mid life crisis

Dear Diary;

 

It's been a loooooooong time , yes, that long since I last wrote inside my blog. Let me count, the last entrée was in 2011 and now it's already mid 2015. Yes, it's been that long, 4 years has gone by and many things have happened in between.

 

Let me begin with my family. I have nieces, yes, two cute, adorable yet at times irritating but still drop dead adorable nieces, Nor Amani Marwah and Nor Safinattun Najjah. My cats died, yes, Aristotle finally breath his last breath last year, and I cried my eyes out for he has been my loyal, angry, depressed yet loving cat for almost 8 years since my son was just a toddler. Another stray cat of mine died, Joey which looked very much like Hubby's one and only Joe, bitten by my neighbor's dog. (Yes, I cursed the dogs like hell, and I still curse the dogs every chance that I get). My eldest Aunty Ton is now bedridden due to third stroke attack, which caused her loosing the ability to swallow and her sickness almost tore my mom's siblings apart due to differences in opinion. (Do remember as we grow older, we are more prone to over criticizing, more dominant, more opiniated, more grumpy and therefore, that leads to family stir). But she's recovering now, although the pace is not as fast as before, she's now learning to swallow again, but things hasn't been quite the same way again. She  no longer able to talk, able to read, able to walk, able to drive, able to other things which she has always been able to do before. It's sad looking at her, but I always pray the best for her, not for her to be better, but the best for her, in this world or the world hereafter. The thing is, after my youngest brother passed away, I look at life in different perspective. We can be young, but if our time is up, our time is up. There is no denial about that. Allah SWT knows best. And the most recent happening in my family is the passing of the last of Arwah Nenek yam's family member, Nenek Noriah. She's 86 this year. And she passed away on a Friday last week, 15.05.15. And that's the closure of Nenek Yam's siblings stories. And true enough, things will never be the same again. Not for this year's raya and the raya after.

 

And then, there is winter. Yup, winter in Malaysia. Har!Har! Just kidding. Although not impossible for winter to arrive in Malaysia, but for now, weather has been doing injustice to us. It's soo hot in Malaysia and at times, I feel like having a portable air condition 24/7 accompanying me everywhere I go.  Without me realizing, I'm now already 38 years old. Yup, 2 years to go before I reach the big 40. And insyallah, if Allah SWT permits, I'll be reaching that age alive, and I do hope by then, I'm already a very successful person, and all my family members are there to be with me and share happy thoughts.

 

So, what has changed? Well, believe it or not, I've started my own business. Yup, the scarve business, small scale online business.  So here's my website just to show some evidence:

 

NURRUA it is. One goal achieved. But starting an online business is no joke. it requires, time, effort, time, effort, time effort..ok I've said it three times to show the amount of time and efforts made to set up this online business and not forgetting financial resources. Of course, no bank loans, that's the number one thing I've promised my self, and limit the risk to less than RM5-10k. indeed I did achieve it. So, this online business has been running since April 2015. I have facebook, instagram and a website. All these while, I thought running an online business is easy peasy. You have a website, e-commerce, instagram, facebook,  upload the photos and there you have it, the audience will make their way for a purchase. But nope, that's what Snow White thinks. The real online business is nowhere near snow white movie, you have a website, upload photo but if the price is not right, and the marketing is not aggressive enough, you don't have customers. And so far, believe it or not, since April 2015 till May 2015, out of 105 scarves that I've produced, only 14 has been sold. Some might say well, it's all right, start slow, things will get better. But the thing is, if it's slow in the beginning, the chances for you to slip out from the customer radar is higher. Yup, higher more than 80%. I have set up my own company banking and register my business mind you. So I really seriously have to make this happen. But the thing is , I have not established my real business plan, there goes. And people say, 'come on, it's not like you are running a 10 million company'.. yes, I'm not, but for any business , even for online business, having a good business and marketing plan is crucial to help you define the next strategy, so that we're not in cloud 9. But question is, where do I start? I think I have to start by creating my vision, mission, objectives, goals...blah blah blah....and ok, here's a declaration, I'm starting this by this week, Saturday, 23 May 2015.

 

 

I'm taking Duck scarves as my role model, and I do hope that would be a good source of inspiration. Of course, my main fabric material of choice would be silk, for it's softness, and classiness.

 

Anyway, that's enough for today's rumble. Waiting for hubby to get back from Labuan. He's already back in KL but still about to get the train back to KL sentral and drive back to our home. And did I mention that 18th May 2015 recently on Monday marked our 13th Anniversary? How time flies right. and my son Muhammad Firas is already 12 years old, and I can still vividly remember my days as a 12 year old kiddo in SRK Dato Abu Bakar. Gosh!how time flies. The one thing that hasn't changed, he's still the only child that we have for now. I do hope Allah SWT will give us a chance to have the opportunity to be parents again to our own second or third children, a healthy and well mannered one insyallah soon. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syawal is here again

I'm writing from my office PC, and it's 3 days before Syawal. I'm planning to take my leave only in the noon, a day before the Eid Mubarak.

It's hard to imagine we're still going to have a meeting this very morning. Things are very different here in HQ compared to my working life in the power plant. By this time, all the staff at the power plant would be busy chatting with each other, either inside one of our collegue's room or at the newspaper corner in Level 3 about how we were going to celebrate our Eid Mubarak. Here in HQ, life is a bit mundane and everybody is still into their work, which adds a little confusion, as to what it is that's causing them to still throw a meeting at this time.

Anyway, this year's celebration won't be as much fun as last year, due to the following reasons:

1. My cat comel died on the 19th November 2010. I miss him, still do.

2. My Aunt Zukiah passed away in March 2011.
She 's one of my aunts who are still single (1 have 3 aunties who are not married) and when I was small , my perfect life would be ..you guess right, SINGLE, UNATTACHED, INDEPENDENT just like they are. They set the bechmark for me to be single lady who is confident to make her own decision, without any strings attached.
Anyway, things have changed as i'm married now. Back to Aunty Zukiah, she's overly perfectionist. However meticulous anyone is, nothing can compare to her level of perfection. She managed to bring the perfectionist world to a different height. Like Bonia and Coach, or..or..Kate Spade and Salvatore Fereggamo...She'll be the Coach and Ferragamo while the rest of us would be the opposite.

Take this for example, whenever any of her siblings were having open houses during raya, she would be the one to take control on the arrangement of things/food/utensils.

She was always there to criticize and re-fix our table and food setting which i find a little bit irritating and annoying (no, in fact it's actually VERY irritating) and we were always telling mama that there is no point in arranging and setting the table as she would come and re-arrange everything in a split second. (which made my mom furious as the person we were talking about was HER sister).

She passed away due to stroke and it was actually a tragic end to her life as she fell from the bathroom, all alone for 2 days. She was in a semi-coma the day my mom and her siblings broke into her house after many failed attempts to contact her handphone and her failure to turn up at my grandma's house during those 2 days.

Now, during this coming raya, things would be very different without her. Gone are the days when she comes for our open house and re-arrange everything and instructed us to follow her way. Gone are the times when she drops by to pay a short visit to her grandchildren (my son and my siblings' children).

We miss you Aunty Zukiah. We will always miss you. You're one of a kind. Selamat Hari Raya Aunty Zukiah. May Allah SWT bless your soul and place you in the Paradise.

3. My grandmother passed away on the 12th July 2011.
My grandmother, hmm...there's a lot to speak about her. I'll make a special post for her rite after this as i'm due for this MEEEETINGGGG sharp at 10.00 am

I finally received my bonus for 2010 (at last) and after setting aside more than half of it, I’ve decided to splurge on a new pair of good running shoes. Influenced by the advert in SELF Magazine, I bought myself a second pair of Reebok toning shoes, but this time, it’s focusing on the running aspect.

The shoes is quiet costly, RM 399 but thanks to the Christmas Sale, there was a 20% discount which reduced the price to RM 319.00

I was intrigued for a pair of these shoes after months of reading this enticing Reebok advert promising a more toned calves, hips and butt for its wearer. I finally have to agree with my hubby that my butt has been giving its fair share of ‘saggingness’ (if there is even such a word).

My first reaction when I tried these shoes was how comfortable it is. It’s light and very airy and it has a bouncy effect during walking and running which I found different from other types of running shoes that I had. The color is not to my liking (green and silver, whoever thought of that!!) but it’s not something I can’t live with.

I've tried running with these shoes in the gym and after 15 minutes, i felt soreness and tightness especially on my hips area. I can't relate whether it's the shoe that’s causing me to feel this way or is it because I haven't been running for more than 1 week.

So, on whether it fits the purpose as promised by Reebok, let’s just wait for another 1-2 months while I try it out and re-measure myself.

My mom's Puding Raja recipe

Ever feeling wanting to eat desert served for the malay royalty? Here's a recipe from my mom, known as Puding Raja. My mom first made this when i was a small kid and i just couldn't have enough of it. It has been years since i last tasted this mouth watering dish and while i was busy surfing the web, she presented me with this recipe, and requested me to give it a try.

Puding Raja

Bahan Bahan:

• 5-10 biji pisang lemak pahang/pisang nipah/pisang lemak manis (don't ask me the difference)
• 5 atau lebih buah prun
• 5 biji atau lebih ceri merah
• 5 biji ceri hijau
• 5 biji atau lebih kacang gajus
• 1genggam kismis (your option)

Bahan untuk kuah

• 1 liter susu cair
• 2 sudu besar susu pekat
• 1 sudu kecil tepung jagung
• 1 biji telur dipukul
• 125 ml air

Cara menyediakan:

1. Kupas kulit pisang dan goreng dengan minyak di atas api sederhana panas sampai warna bertukar kuning tua.
2. Bahan-bahan untuk membuat kuah dicampurkan dan digaul hingga sebati.
3. Masukkan ke dalam periuk dan masak sehingga mendidih
4. Kacau sehingga kuah menjadi pekat
5. Biarkan kuah tersebut sejuk sebelum dituangkan ke atas pisang. Hidangkan.

Viola1and the dish is ready.

What blood type RU?

Admist the hectic working life and the non stop preparation for AKP 2009 assessment, a colleague of mine took the initiative (God, my english words revolve around initiatives, strategies, empowerment..blah!blah!blah!) to email us on the blood type and its relationship to our personalities. I'm a 'B+' and it's crazy to see the list of things related to your blood type. Let me just share here the details of it:

JENIS DARAH : B

Main Character Thinker; Task Oriented
Motto : Let do it the right /perfect way!!
Strength
1. IQ tinggi
2. Biasa golongan bijak pandai datang dari group darah B
3. Suka berfikir
4. Soft spoken
5. Fikir tentang sensitivity orang
6. Sesuai bidang R&D
7. Biasa excellence dalam pelajaran
8. Tempat kerja selalunya bersih
Weaknesses

1. Kalau jadi leader, orang biasanya tak boleh ikut cara dia
2. A bit pendendam
3. Moody
4. Agak pendiam
5. Kurang sesuai jadi leader
Ketahanan terhadap penyakit
Nampak semua bakteria (samada baik/buruk) adalah sebagai buruk dan dikeluarkan dari tubuh
Jenis penyakit yang biasa menyerang

Kronik ’fatigue syndrome’ / cepat lupa bila usia dah meningkat kerana terlalu banyak berfikir
Makanan sesuai
Balance diet (sesuai semua jenis makanan kecuali seafood bercengkerang)
Makanan tidak sesuai
Seafood bercengkerang seperti udang, ketam etc

Question is, how far does the above relates to me? so, here's the lists which I think is relevant to me:-

Main Character: - Yep, i'm a task oriented person. I keep every detials of my daily activities inside a diary.Don't be suprise to know i even jot down my food intake..yeah, freakkk....I'm NOT.

Strength:
IQ tinggi - har!har!well, kindda average..or i would've been the best student in the U
Thinker : Yep, at times..depending on topics that interest me...
Tempat kerja selalu bersih- Hell noooo...you'll be suprised to see my office desk..it's a total mess

In general, not all details described there are true but it'sfun to know the blood running inside your body have their own characterics to it too.