Archive for April, 2008

I was standing in front of the mirror looking at my auntie arms.

“I’ve put on some more weight. Just look at my arms. So fat!”

My girl was around when I said that and she replied.

“Mummy, its very easy to get thin you know. Just wear something around your waist. Its orange in color. I saw it!”

Hahaha. Now, if only it was that easy. There wouldn’t be any fat people in this world.

The Maid has failed her Medical Tests. She has got TB and has to be sent home immediately.

What does this mean to me? According to the agent, I don’t have to pay anything extra. Yes, sure! But what about the opportunity cost or the cost of interest for the money that I’ve paid upfront to bring the maid into the country?

Now, I have to pick another maid and wait for another 2 months. I’m back to square one! I first made my application at the end of December last year. Its the end of April now. Another 2 months will make it 6 months or half a year of waiting.

My only thought. Why is the process so ridiculous? Why can’t they make sure she passes all her medical tests BEFORE she comes in the country and not AFTER she comes in? Such a waste of time and money for everyone.

All my anxiousness, nervousness and preparation for nothing. We even went out to buy a fan for the maid’s room last weekend.  I need the fan to blow at my face right now.

GERAMNYA! In a flurry of frustrated activity, I cleaned out the bathroom yesterday and squatted down to brush out the dirty bathroom walls and sinks.

The one good thing that has come out of this? At least my bathroom is clean now. *slaps forehead*

Well, I don’t know if it is but it is Fashion Week at One Utama and Mid Valley Megamall. I just happened to be there during the weekend and was treated to Fashion Shows.

I watched a Fitness Fashion show at Mid Valley. What fantastic outfits. Gone are those days of boring old shorts and t-shirts for jogging or boring black leotards for group aerobics exercises. The fitness fashion is so interesting these days. What fantastic outfits. Now if only I could fit into them! Hahaha. Well, first I’ve got to exercise in my boring old T and shorts first before I can wear one of those nice fitness outfits. Lol! The models looked great sashaing on the walkway. Oh! Those flat tummies! I’m so jealous! I never had a flat tummy. Not even when I was a teen! Sobs. Now I can forget about a flat tummy ever. Racking sobs!

At One Utama I was treated to an all male fashion show as I happened to be there when they were modelling an all male brand. The guys don’t look as good as the girls on the walkway. Maybe I’m just not used to seeing guys strutting their stuff on the walkway. Haha. I thought they walked kind of funny. My only thought was how come none of the male models (and there were plenty) looked like a true blue Malaysian. They all looked so…. foreign. I am sure there are many good looking Malaysian guys around. Maybe none of them wants to become a model. Hmmm… what do you think?

Dear Readers,

I just had a sex change operation and obtained a Ph.D ……errrrmm …. lets see…. Ph.D in exercisology. Yup! FYI my name’s just been changed to Rick Nauert and I am now the proud owner of a Ph.D in exercisology.

Don’t believe me? Well, just go here and click on the name Rick Nauert, Ph.D and see what happens.

P.S. There is no guarantee that the link will still work if you read this late.

Last week the maid agent called to inform us that the maid has arrived. “We shall conduct a medical test and some orientation. Once that is done, we will call you to collect the maid”, she said. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” That seems to be her favourite phase.

So I waited and waited and finally I called her.

MG: When can we collect the maid?

Agent: You can’t because she is having her period

MG: Huh? How come?

Agent: Because we can’t do a urine test when she is having her period

MG: Oh, I see…

Agent: Don’t worry lah. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

Hmmm… thats not a very good start.

I’m really nervous about meeting the maid and taking her in to live with us in our house. I’m worried about whether she will get along with us and get used to our culture and our way of doing things. I am worried about whether the kids will like her. I am worried about whether I will be able to manage her well instead of letting her climb all over my head because I am such a softie. I am worried about whether she can be trusted. I am a bit sad about the loss of privacy and the adjustments we will have to make to admit a stranger into our house.

So many worries and then this delay….. I am worried that this delay will expose the new maid to the reject maids that are at the agents etc etc. I am worried that this delay is not a coincidence but a trick. Gosh! I am such a worrier!

I am sure that most Malaysians has heard of the online reality show called Malaysian Dreamgirls. Its coming to an end on 29th April 2008 at the Oval, One Utama. Did you watch any episodes?

I didn’t because I don’t have the time but I did check out the website for a peek. What I did not like about it is that in some of the photos you find the girls dressing in skimpy outfits posing in suggestive and provocative poses. Whatever for? To increase ratings and voting?

Take a look at this photo gallery of the Malaysian Dreamgirls in wardrobe by Women’s Secret. I suppose its to show how the girls look posing in inner wear. However, I find that the photos are too revealing. I don’t mind the girls posing in swimwear for a contest but this looks unnecessary.

Oh well, I must really be getting old or perhaps its just the fact that I have a daughter now. And if my girl was to pose suggestively like that wearing those revealing outfits on an online site, I’d freak out!

I’d like to get some opinion on the men and women on this. Women, what do you think of those poses and outfits. How would you feel if your daughter were to were revealing clothes and pose like that on the internet for a contest? Men, you can come back and comment after you have finished wiping off the saliva from your faces. Would you allow your daughter, girlfriend to take part in the contest?

I’ve got to exercise for health reasons. The fact that exercise helps in the beauty department is a bonus. However, I must say that I am obsessed with excercise. Not obsessed in the sense that I MUST do some exercise 2 hours daily (like Madonna) or else…. but rather I am obsessed with the thought that I SHOULD be doing my exercises or else…. Hahaha.

Yup! I am obsessed with exercise. Each day, I feel some pressure about the fact that I am not doing the exercises that I am SUPPOSED to be doing. Exercise should be a way of life, I tell myself. It should be part of my daily routine. At the very minimum all I need is just 20 minutes 3 times a week. But I slack and then I worry myself silly.

I wish that I was motivated to exercise. I admire those who are so strong willed and who have made exercise a part of their lives. I admire those who can get up early in the morning and do exercises as part of their routine before they start the day. I just want to zzzzzzzzzzzz and press the snooze button for the 3rd maybe 4th time…

The other day I was passing by a corner lot shophouse and I was amazed to see a group of people doing some group exercises at about 9.30pm on a weekday. My goodness! Gyms and Yoga or other health and fitness centres are sprouting everywhere. More and more people are becoming aware of the need to exercise to keep healthy.

Are you obsessed with exercise too? Do you HAVE to exercise or are you WORRIED because you DON’T or you don’t care at all. Which category to you fall under?

Attention all mommy bloggers (and other bloggers too)! SocialSpark is here at last. I did promise in my previous post that I was going to talk about another way you can find money making opportunities for your blog.  Well, I was talking about SocialSpark. So what is SocialSpark? Lets see, the best way I can describe it is SocialSpark is like a cross between a blog advertising site like PayPerPost, a statistics and analytics calculator site like Site Meter or IzeaRank and a social networking site like Blog Catalog. Everything rolled into one. Its a social networking site for bloggers and advertisers. Fantastic! I love it. Now I don’t have to click or monitor several sites when one site does it all.I’ve just signed up so I’m still feeling my way around but I like what I see so far. Here’s what I like about it.

• when you click on an opp you are interested in, you will see the recent visitors to the opp, people who have taken the opp, recent posts for the opp (including the number of words - so much detail!) as well as the best post to date (Ooh! I love a challenge and must try to get to the best post to date page.). It also shows the number of opps the advertiser has created. You can also leave your comment for the opp. One click on the advertiser’s link will bring you to the advertiser’s profile with even more details.
• on the other hand the blogger’s profile page will show you the blogger’s profile, the blogger’s blogs (and most bloggers have a few these days) and the blogger’s network of friends. You can also leave comments or vote for the blogger just like most social networking sites. However, clicking on the blogger’s blog links will give  you much more detailed information like the blog’s RealRank and Alexa Rank (no Google pagerank here), pageviews, visitors, detailed demographics in numbers and graphs.  You can also view summaries of the latest blog posts from the blogger. All these are extremely useful information for an advertiser. Its very transparent all out in the open. I would also advise you to make your numbers public (if you have previously made it private) in IzeaRanks because advertisers like to see numbers
• On the home page you can browse blogs or browse opportunites, if you like to interact, you can go to the community tab and browse users, participate in the Izea boards, read the Izea blog or watch RockStartUp
• Under your account tab, you can manage your finances, manage your public profile or your blogs and view your messages from your friends, advertisers or customer love
• The opps use no follow links and there is complete disclosure like what you see at the bottom of this post
• There is a bonus payment for best posts for certain opps. This is great because bloggers will be motivated to write better posts to qualify for the bonus as well as get extra traffic from being linked as best post for the opp

Here is a preview of how your profile will look like at SocialSpark. Nice?

Credit for Image: I am sure that the good folks at Izea won’t mind that I took their screenshot for this

Now for some of my grouses so far. You have to wait in Q for opps and once available you only have 12 hours to complete it. 12 hours is too short for bloggers who are not in the same time zone as SocialSparks. I am afraid that if I get the opp reserved for me in the morning SocialSparks time (at night my time) and I only find out about it the next morning (my time), I would have missed the 12 hours deadline. Another thing, I managed to reserve the opp at a certain price but it keeps on fluctuating higher and lower on a demand and supply basis I presume. Thats very frustrating when I manage to get it at a much lower price. But these are minor grouses which I believe will be ironed out. Afterall, they just came out of Alpha and is in Beta now. I was an Alpha tester but only for a day. Haha.

My major grouse is now I will be stuck in front of the PC for many more hours each day monitoring my SocialSpark activities. Help!

Note: Opp = Opportunity to write a sponsored post for an advertiser

BTW, there are three kinds of Opps in SocialSpark.

1. The regular Sponsored Posts
2. Blog Sponsorships ie advertisers sponsoring your blogs on a day to day basis
3. Sparks - Free Opps. You don’t get paid for this but they may count as interim posts. Anyone can create a Spark. You can create a spark to create a buzz for your own blog and leave a “bloguback” to all bloggers who take up your opp. Its like tit for tat. I rub your back, you rub me back. In this case I buzz you and you buzz me back. Everyone benefits from this blog pimping for each other. And if the spark comes from an advertiser, no problem if you don’t get paid, it’ll give you more blogging ideas for blog posts

I’m really long winded here and thats because I’m really just so excited about this new platform for bloggers to network with advertisers but I won’t keep you any longer.  Mommies, Daddies and everyone else, why not go register and find out for yourself what SocialSpark is all about?

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going.”

The other day I was clearing or doing some housekeeping on my Parenting Times blog when I noticed that I had many posts in draft that I had forgotten to publish! Haha.

When I first started blogging, I just blogged whenever I felt like it. This soon became daily as I got more in touch with addicted to blogging. Then I found that sometimes I had several things (blog posts) to say in a day and none at all for several days. So I started keeping posts in draft to *ahem* space them out. Afterall we blog for the interaction right. Better to have daily posts then to have several posts in a day. Your readers can’t keep up with that.  

Then I started a few more blogs (to make money blogging) so I had to make sure I had things to say everyday. So more drafts. Then I had to make sure I had interim posts between my make money  posts so I had to make sure that I had lots of draft posts to slot in between.

Then the make money posts dried up (but they will be back soon hopefully and I will tell you why in another post.) And all of a sudden, I found that I have quite a few blog posts in draft that I didn’t publish and had forgotten about. Hahaha.

Thats the crazy things that us bloggers do. So when you read a blog, what you read is not what you get. You may only read about something that happened to me last week “today”.  (That is if I forget to change it to “last week”). This wordpress blog has the feature to schedule blog posts to be published when you choose to but I don’t use it. I still prefer to hit “publish” myself when I am around and not when I am away but thats just me.

However, having said this, I am sure some bloggers are not like this. They will genuinely publish only when they write and whenever they write. But those who are like me are those who write a lot and also those who get paid blogging. There are also some who write ahead of time and schedule those posts to be published daily when they are not around but thats not me. Some have unpublished posts because they changed their mind about publishing after writing the post.

What about you? Do you have many unpublished posts in draft?

The other day, I was window shopping at a shopping complex in KL when I saw a small crowd gathering in front of a window display. Out of curiousity (KPC), I too went over to have a look. I haven’t the time to upload the photo yet so I shall describe it the best I can.

In the window display was a water tank and in it I saw two pairs of feet and lots of little fishes nibbling away at the two pairs of feet! At first I thought it was some new marketing gimmick. You know, sometimes you see magic shows and escape artists doing their act in the water.

But it was no marketing gimmick. Its the latest spa therapy. A designer spa to rejuvenate, relax and beautify. The little fish nibbling at your nerve endings is good apparently. Sorry I can’t give more information because I was too busy chasing after two kids to listen to what the marketing person was saying and by now the brochure they handed me has been torn up by the same two little kids.

Anyway this is not a review so I don’t have to worry about the accuracy. I am just speaking my thoughts. It just shows that we live in a world of added stress leading to more and more people seeking new alternative forms of treatments.

If you are interested in having your feet snacked on by Dr Fish you can check out this NST story link for a more detailed story about the fish spa.