Buka Puasa

This is the first time during this fasting month of Ramadhan that I had Sahuur (light meal taken shortly before the break of dawn) alone.

I reached my house around 3 am yesterday. Caught a few winks before I was woken up by my alarm. I had a drink of Nestum, a piece of cake, some dates and a pizza, which my wife had packed for me in KL.

I may have to break fast alone today and that is not a happy thought.

Breaking the fast is definitly much more fun when you are with your loved ones. Can't wait for the week to end and I get back to KL again.

20 Years Ago

I was tagged some time back by Shinshin and I finally got down to writing it down today.

20 Years Ago:
I was an awkward kid, trying to settle down and fit in. Missing my friends and life in London. Became a full-fledged vegetarian and my parents gave up trying to convince me that meat was essential for good health. My favourite pastimes were drawing and painting. Even got some prizes.

Went through a period of hardship and grew up immediately. Learnt that life can be full of ups and downs - changing at the blink of an eye. Learnt many painful lessons in life. Started wearing glasses soon.


10 Years Ago:
Completed my Bachelor of Science in Forestry Degree from Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India. I became and adult there, among the pine trees on the foothills of the Himalayas.

Not sure whether I was a nerd – wore a glass (soon replaced with contacts) was part of the University Quiz team and even started a Environment society. However, we were into a lot of adventurous stuff – how many of you have ever gone trekking in the mountains, slept in flea ridden rest houses (not hotels), gone up on a glider. I learnt swimming not in any swimming pool but in one of the streams there. Drank like crazy. Heart broken too. Some of the best times of my life.

Carried on with my Master of Science in Forestry at the same University.

5 Years Ago:
Obtained my MBA from the University of Malaya. Met my future wife for the first time. The first time I saw her – baggy jeans and black T-shirt, always late to class. Became great friends and later …..

Don’t paint at all now though I do sketch sometimes. More into writing and web designing.

Entered the corporate world soon afterwards. A big change from life in the jungles of India. The guy who gave me the job, my boss, was my MBA colleague who happened to be the MD of a huge group of companies. God bless him.

Changed a couple of jobs after that, including a short stint in the Asia–Pacific office of Consumer’s International. Even went through an unemployed phase. However, as they say: Every cloud has a silver lining. Got a E-commerce professional certificate from Informatics in KL.

Started my own business, which never took off.

3 Years Ago:

Started working in Kedah. Hard to fit in but I did. Love my job even though the pay is ....ummm....just enough – I guess its better than no job at all. At least there are no stupid bosses to know-tow too.

I had converted to Islam a year before at Islamic Outreach ABIM in Ampang Hilir, Kuala Lumpur.

Got married to the most wonderful girl. Literally changed me – for the better (not that I was bad). The things we had to go through to make it happen and all the wonderful people who helped us- will remain in our heart and minds forever.

Soon after, gave me the most beautiful present – my daughter Rahil.

1 Year Ago:
Still traveling between Kedah and Kuala Lumpur.

Got the ‘Sijil Anugerah Perkhidmatan Cemerlang’ Award.

Life goes on as usual.


Ramadhan Mubarak everyone.

A Prayer for Bali

Let us pray for all the people who lost their lives in Bali due to the actions of some misguided souls.

When I thought it couldn't happen again and was even thinking of going to Bali, some stupid guys set off bombs and killing themselves and at least 16 innocent people in the process, most of them indonesians.

Who are these people doing the devil's work? What do they hope to gain from it?

There is no justification in the whole wide world for what they did.

Everyone is wearing a Tissot

Among my colleagues, I have become the guy they should consult before buying any electronic product. Not sure whether I can call myself an opinion leader but I guess I am. Now, it seems that I am also becoming their fashion accessories consultant. That's so wrong because I am definitely not gay nor a metrosexual. I am just a normal old-fashioned type of guy.

Last year my wife gave me a Tissot PR 50 watch as our anniversary present - the gents version of the one she has. "Matching! Matching!" in her words. Reminds me that our anniversary is coming up soon – in fact it falls next month.

Anyway, one of my friends was looking for a new watch to replace his old one and asked my opinion regarding various brands in the market. Of course, I recommended Tissot.

Why?

1. It's a Swiss watch.
2. It's a brand with a long and proud heritage. The brand celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2003. The company was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland in 1853 and is now part of the Swatch group, the biggest watch company in the World.
3. It's one of the classy yet among the most affordable brands.

If you have seen Mr and Mrs Smith, the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt adventure flick, you might not have realised it but both of them are wearing Tissot T-Touch watches.

Actually, this is not the first time Jolie has worked with the Swiss brand. She also wore the Tissot’s T-Touch in the movie: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life.

My dream watch, the T-Touch offers 8 separate functions including an Altimeter, Chronograph, Compass, Alarm, Thermometer, Barometer as well as Date and Time. You may say, "So what? Even my Casio has all of those features?" Ah! That is where the similarity with the Tissot T-Touch ends. Pressing on the crown and then touching the touch-sensitive screen activates the functions.

Anyway, coming back to my story. One fine day, I noticed that my friend had bought a new watch - one exactly like mine. Yes, it’s a Tissot watch. According to him, "it was the best looking affordable model in the watch shop".

Yah right! What happened to all the Seikos, Citizens, Swatches, CKs, etc, etc.? However, unlike, ladies who would die if they were caught wearing the same clothes or fashion accessories, guys don't have that problem. So I have no problem with my friend wearing the same watch. Show's that we have similar good taste.

NOTE: I was not paid by Tissot to write this post.

Long Live Blogger and my blog

Someone told me that it was about time that I got myself a proper domain name for my blog and move away from Blogspot and Blogger. According to him, getting a dot com or dot net or dot whatever for your blog and hosting it somewhere, means that you take blogging seriously, in other words, have taken "the big step forward."

To illustrate his point, he pointed out that all famous Malaysian bloggers including Kenny, Minishorts, Peter Tan, had unique domain names for their blogs.

However, I beg to disagree.

First of all, I do take blogging seriously.

I already own a few domain names and I don't think getting one for my blog is a good idea. You have to pay for the domain names and the hosting, annually, biannually or whatever annually depending on your choice. Unlike some people, I am surving on a paltry government employee salary.

On the other hand, hosting on Blogger is totally free and comes with great features. It is also owned by Google, which I don't think is going to go out of business soon. As Google grows, so will Blogger. For example, we can now add Google adsense ads to our blog straightaway.

I also don't have the time or the patience to mess around with Wordpress or Movable Type or some other blog software. I am not an IT guy and don't like to trouble people to help me with the template codes, blah, blah or deal with some customer service guy in the hosting company who treats you like an idiot because you don't know how the codes work.

I prefer the Blogger templates, ready made, which I can tweak a little from time to time.

If I have any problem, I am sure I can contact any of the guys in Blogger to help me out. It's a proven fact: they helped famous Singapore blogger Wendy put her blog up after it was hacked??? And as you may realise, it is hosted with Blogger too.

Not all famous Malaysian bloggers have a dot com or dot net or dot whatever. Actually, I think Lucia pointed that out sometimes back. I can name several famous Malaysian blogs hosted on Blogger:
Afdlin Shauki, Yasmin Ahmad, Sultan Muzaffar and of course Lim Kiat Siang

And talking about unique domain names, I assure you guys that there is only one blog with the url http://ok-lah.blogspot.com in the Whole World Wide Web.

Renewing Maid's Visa I

Two weeks back we received a letter from the Immigration office stating that our maid's visa was due to expire in December.

Most leave it up to the agents to do it for them but you can save a lot of money by doing it youself. However, you can end up wasting a lot of time, if you don't know what is required and unfortunately I couldn't find any information on the net telling us what to do.I am sure a lot of people out there would be interested in knowing how to go about the whole process.

1. Renewing Registration with FOMEMA

FOMEMA Sdn. Bhd. is the foreign worker's medical examination monitoring agency in Malaysia. It is now a subsidiary of Pantai Holdings Bhd. The office address is given below:

FOMEMA SDN BHD
Lot G1-G10, Level 3, Block G (Central), Pusat Bandar Damansara,
Damansara Heights, 50490 Kuala Lumpur.
General Tel. No. :03-20946188

In order to renew the registration with Fomema, follow the steps given below.

i) First of all get photocopies of the front page of the passport as well as the work permit.

The maid need not make the trip to their office with you. Also no photographs are required for renewal of maids already registered with Fomema.

ii) Make out a bank draft for RM190/ (RM180 if a guy) to FOMEMA Sdn. Bhd.

iii) Check for the nearest medical clinic in your locality listed on the notice boards (preferably choose one with their own X-ray facilities to avoid making two trips. The list of clinics is not listed on their website.

Make sure you choose one most convenient as changing it later can cost you another RM20. Remember to write it down on a piece of paper as you have to fill it in the application form.

iv) Get your number in the queue from the lady at the enquiry counter, fill up the application form and wait for them to call your number.

This Friday, I went to their office at Pusat Bandar Damansara, followed steps i) to iv). However as they say, the best-laid plans can go astray. There was quite a number of people already there. My number in the queue was 1118 while the present number was 1080 (38 people to go). There were six counters but I soon realised that only counters 1 and 2 were handling renewals and I expected a wait of about an hour...

After an hour they were still going at a snails pace and there were about 20 people to go before my number was called. I went down to get a drink and buy newspapers. Came back up again, read and reread the Star twice from cover to cover.

I also missed my Friday prayers at the mosque - was a little guilty about it but didn't want to make the trip again. I excused myself saying that I was a musafir - a traveler and would make up for it with Zohor prayers later in the house.

When my turn finally came, more than two and half hours later, I was really mad but was calm on the surface. I mentioned it casually to the lady at the counter and she apologised saying that the system was a bit slow that day. A BIT! Between the two of these ladies, they had taken two and half hours to process the applications of 32 people (5 people didn’t turn up when their number was called). That’s almost 10 minutes per person. They better do something about their stupid system or open up more counters.

However, it took them only five minutes to print out my stuff, and I was really relieved when they called my name to pick up the documents from the counter.

2. Going to the clinic

The clinic I choose was in PJ State, about 10 mintues from my wife's house. Rushed there with the maid because they closed at 12 pm on Saturdays.

It took them only about half an hour to complete the entire procedure - medical checkup, blood samples and x-ray. I love professional and efficient organisations.

Now have to wait for at least 10 days before we can get the results. And then finally renew the Visa.

Majlis Bertunang

Last Saturday I drove down to Johor Baru with my wife and Rahil in tow. This was my first trip to Johor Baru but I would not have missed it for anything.

We were there for a very important event - Hardy and Zaza's engagement ceremony - two of our dearest friends. We were also looking forward to meeting Zaza's parents.

For those who not aware of Malay culture and customs, the Majlis Bertunang (engagement ceremony) is an elaborate affair seeped in tradition.

Traditionally, the man's relatives and close friends will usually go to the girl's house (without the guy) and a designated representative will ask for the hand of the girl on behalf of the guy's family.

On the girl's side, they will have their own representative, which will negotiate (I don't know whether this is the right word) with his counterpart on the guy's side.

They will take turns in speaking, usually using poetic and flowery language beginning with the introductions.

Not so common now, sometimes these representatives would spar verbally (in a friendly manner) with poetry (called Pantun in Malay).

This is not easy considering that you would have to immediately come up with a short Pantun, which has to make sense and has to rhyme as well. I guess, in the olden days if you wanted to get married, you would need a really witty person who was good with words to be your representative. I later learnt that the guy representing Zaza was really good with coming up with 'Pantun' but he decided to let us go with only one which he used in closing.

I find it interesting that a simple sentence like: "We have come to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage" would be worded as "we have come to pluck the beautiful flower from your garden" In Malay.

And if the family had more than one daughter, they would reply in Malay : "We have a few (in this case 2) flowers in our garden. Which one would you be referring to?"

This goes on for a while until they clarify which daughter the party is referring to, sometimes the ‘Hantaran’ (dowry) amount and date of marriage is fixed.

Another important part of the 'bertunang' ceremony are the gifts (on trays) which are exchanged between the two families. The girls' family will usually give 2 trays more than the guy's side. The gifts vary but there are 2 important gifts which are compulsary. One is the engagement ring and another is a tray holding folded sirih (betel) leaves, pinang (betel nut) and kapur (lime) placed together in a container called 'tepak sirih'. All of this is part of the Malay 'Adat' or tradition.

Anyway, coming back to Hardy's and Zaza's engagement, we were relieved that everything went OK. Even then, Hardy being the perfectionist he is, was a bit worried with some minor details. My advice: Don't worry! Now plan for the wedding.

Zaza, it was really nice finally meeting up with your parents. They are indeed wonderful people.

A memorable trip indeed.