Archive for the 'Life Observation' Category

I’ve turned into a true blue housewife. I’ve started watching Hong Kong Drama Serials online. Help! Hahaha.

If you don’t see much of me online these days, it could be because I’m stuck watching those addictive Hong Kong Drama Series Online. I’ve never watched those very much before especially when the kids were young because I didn’t have the time. I don’t even subscribe to Astro so my TV watching hours are very very limited. The kids too. We don’t watch TV very much but we do have special allocated TV evenings where we would sit down together to watch a VCD Cartoon Movie. Thats the extent of my TV hours.

But now that I’ve discovered Mysoju. I’m stuck. Their tagline says “Feed your drama addiction ……” Its a good tagline because the list of dramas seem endless. There are Korean Dramas, Japanese Dramas, Taiwanese Dramas but I like Hong Kong Dramas best.

The dramas are nicely broken down into short parts that you can watch online via streaming rather than downloading. So you’ve got to have a good internet connection otherwise,  you will feel frustrated. What you can do is, open the dramas in different windows, then allow them to download fully before watching, otherwise they will keep breaking up and you will lose your patience.

The dramas or episodes are listed in a well organised manner like The Gem of Life here, for example.

Do check it out if you like dramas. It has a really good list. I like it because I can watch the Asian Drama Series in short parts but the best thing is its free!

You know, this is not a sponsored post but sometimes I think I’ve written too many paid posts till my style of writing has changed somewhat. Oops! Anyway, I just think that a good thing ought to be shared.

I am the long hair type. It must be because from the age of 7 to 12 I was forced to have short hair, very short hair because of the school I attended. I was in Methodist Girl’s School. They were very strict about hair. Must be above the colar and ears, fringe above the eyebrows etc. So after age 12, I rebelled and I have been rebelling ever since. Hahaha. I’ve only cut my hair fairly short once since then and I hated the look. Besides long hair is so much easier to look after, its low maintenance, like me. Hehehe.

Here’s an excerpt of an article I read on the web about women with long hair pinpointing women over 40 to be exact (that would be me if you didn’t already know). Haha.

“What Long Hair Reveals About Personality

Women who are over 40 years old and wear their hair long may not resist growing up. Dimitrius writes, “Sometimes women with this trait are caught in a time warp and still think of themselves as teenagers or college students rather than as grown-ups. Such women may be fairly unrealistic in their outlook on life as well as in their perception of themselves.”

Women who have long hair may believe it makes them more sexually appealing. Long hair could also reveal a bohemian spirit or freedom from conventional expectations.

Read more: “What Your Hair Says About You: Discovering Personality Traits Through Women’s Hairstyles” - http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_your_hair_says_about_you#ixzz0Av8SjgMq

OMG! Hahaha. Perhaps its true. I always feel younger than my age. I’m like stuck forever young in my mind altho the body begs to differ. lol. Older also means slower metabolism. I was supposed to lose 5 pounds but I gained 5 pounds instead. Grrrrrrr! (But then thats another story for another day). The second part about freedom from conventional expectations is not true for me though. I’m very conventional to the point of being exceptionally boooorrrrriingg. Yaawwwwn.

What about you? Which hair type are you?

What would you do if you saw an elderly person or a mother and a young child who appears to need your help? Would you help them or would you walk away? I am afraid that if you were to help them, there is a possibility that you would be robbed instead. That is the sad state of affairs we are in.

Earlier this week, my son’s kindergarten teacher had her handphone stolen. How? A mother and a young girl had come into the premises pretending to enquire about childcare arrangements. The mother asked to look around the premises, then she sat down with the teacher to discuss about childcare arrangements. The “mother” told the young girl “Girl, go and look around lah.”

Well, she certainly looked around, because when they left, the teacher’s handphone which was left lying on the table was gone. The woman had followed the principal to another premise to look at another center owned by her. She did the same thing there, asked to look around etc. Finally she left.

The teacher had been quick to contact the principal and they managed to track down the woman and the child at their car. An argument ensued and the woman instructed the girl to go to the car. The girl came back with an iron bar/rod. (I can’t imagine a young girl doing that. How can it be? A young girl!) Then they quickly got into the car and drove off as fast as they could. They had also given a false address because when the kindergarten checked later, there was no such person staying there.

The teacher and the principal chased after them but she drove too fast and they soon lost her. Of course they made a police report since the woman had threatened them with an iron bar. They were worried about the safety of the kids. What if the woman came back with more accomplices to show her anger?

Apparently this woman and young girl modus operandi is not new. One even took off with some car keys lying on the table and drove off with a teacher’s car at another kindy.

A few months ago, the household association in my area issued a warning to residents informing us that some elderly persons or young children would go around ringing the door bells of people’s home. If no one answered, the house would be a target for theft. If someone answered, they would pretend they were at the wrong house etc and leave. One would never suspect and elderly person or a young child but you should. You should always be aware of your surroundings and try not to give anyone the opportunity to commit any crime. A lot of crime happens because of opportunity and because of unawareness.

After reading and hearing of more and more cases like these, I am afraid that I have turned into a hard hearted person. If anyone approaches me, I would turn away. I have been approached before at bus stops by men requesting for money because they needed money for taxi fares, phone calls etc. My family has been approached while we were dining at a coffee shop by a man asking for money because he needed help etc. We just harden our hearts and turn away.

Now I will even have to turn away from elderly persons and young children because I no longer know who I can trust. I prefer to walk soaking wet in the rain rather than take a lift from good samaritans. It happened before. Once, I was soaking wet in the heavy rain and many cars honked to see if I needed a lift. I just shake my hand and walked on. I don’t know who is good and who is bad. They all look the same. The worse criminals may be the ones who look the most kind because they have set out to mislead us. I can no longer trust anyone, sad to say.

I love contests. I think the best part about a contest is the anticipation of winning. This usually happens immediately after I submit my contest entry. I guess that allowing myself to dream about winning is a nice feeling because it makes me hope for something, silly though this may sound. Dreaming about my “winnings” is fun but of course winning is even better.

To maximise my chance of winning, I don’t enter sms contests (which is usually expensive and can be a scam). I don’t enter contests which require a lot of work (eg a different entry each week or as many entries as you can types) and those which require a lucky chance among millions because I don’t ever seem to win any lucky draws.

I usually enter contests which require some writing because I think some people would be lazy to write in so it increases my chance and I enter those which I think has less contestants so that increases my chance. Using these “strategies” I have won quite a few items.

Jewellery, Expensive face creams (which I wouldn’t buy myself if I didn’t win them ;)), a watch worth RM1,000 which I eventually sold to Cash Converters for RM100 a few years later after the batteries ran out. And each time I won I was on cloud nine. I remembered the first time I won a string of pearls, I was so excited when I called hubby he was wondering what it was all about.

Hubby used to shake his head when I entered yet another contest but he stopped shaking it after I won something rather useful. Now, he helps me look out for contests and helps me to send out my entry forms.

Well, if you’re like me and you like contests, here’s a chance for you to win something. Now, we have contests on blogs. Thats a new and good medium for contests because it increases your chance of winning, IMO. The prize for this contest is a cash voucher worth RM88 for a clothing line which is exclusively for boys only, boys aged 1 to 14. So, if you have a son, a newphew, a brother or a friend’s son who is this age, go check out this Blogger’s Contest on my Parenting Times Blog.

Psst: Hope that all the blogger kakis out there can help to spread the word about the contest around. Thanks.

“Wuah! 70% discount! Must buy!”

Think again, whether you MUST buy that item. Its easy to be swayed by the big numbers 50%, 70% etc. Sometimes we end up buying things we don’t even need!

However, at other times we’ve are conned to buy something at an even higher price than before the discount! I think some dishonest retailers are still at it.

A while back, I went to buy a floor scrub at a popular department store. RM1.50 it said. When I went to pay for it, the cashier told me that it was the old price. The new price is RM2.50 she said but you have a 20% discount so its RM2.00.

I was not happy but its only a small amount so I did not want to squabble over it. After paying for the brush, I went back to the aisle to check because I was sure that I saw all similar brushes priced at RM1.50. However, a couple had new yellow tags with the “new price.”  I went back to ask the cashier how come the same brush has two different sets of price tags. She told me that they had not put in the new price tags for the rest.

Hmm…. I guess that with the “SALES”, the new price tag is added over the old price. The price is marked up so that in the end you pay more after a 20% “discount” compared to the original price.

So better be careful next time you shop during “SALES”. Of course most sales are genuine but you must research and know your price. Another thing, I never buy bedding during non-sale periods because its quite annoying to find the same thing going at 70% less the next week or month when they have sales.

I am trying to book accomodation for balik kampung during Chinese New Year. Its not too early you know. Chinese New Year is on January 26 and 27 in 2009. I used to leave everything last minute. Once we even balik kampung without any reservations! We were fortunate to find a room. Hehe. So this year, I am trying to do plan a bit better so that we don’t have to rush around last minute as we did previously.

Now, what I would like to know from everyone is, how do you normally book hotels or make reservations for rooms? Do you go direct to the hotel, through agent or via internet? Which is cheaper and easier?

I tried to go direct to hotel but the rates seem so high. Another thing, they wanted confirmation by paying deposit for one night’s stay which is the norm, given that it is the peak period. Now, I am a paranoid person and I don’t like to give out my credit card information as required. They require the last 3 numbers of the credit card along with other personal details plus a photocopy of the credit card itself, back and front. What if it should fall into the wrong hands?

So I requested to pay by banking in to the banks account but you know what? They don’t accept individual personal cheques. They only accept banking in cash. To me, thats a silly policy because if I bank in now, it will have lots of time to clear. Anyway, they gave my a banking account number with a different payee name, not the hotel name. Ok, so perhaps the payee is the owner of the hotel under a different name but do they really expect people to bank in cash to a name that is registered differently from the hotel name?

When I asked the reservation lady to email the bank account number to me she was not very friendly. I didn’t want her to give it to me over the phone in case I hear wrongly. She just said “Yah” and hung up without even saying goodbye. Mind you, the room is not  cheap since I am taking a big family type room to accomodate my maid as well.

Hmmm…. I am now in two minds whether to look for other accomodation. So I would like to know how does everyone normally make their bookings and confirmations? Can anyone help out this blur queen?

When choosing a husband, don’t choose one who has a fantastic mom or one who has a mom who does everything for him.

For example, my nephew who has just gone overseas to pursue his studies found that he now has to learn how to make instand noodles and he doesn’t know how to use a washing machine to wash his clothes because his mom has always been there to do these simple tasks for him.

“You’re spoiling him.” I told my sister. “I pity the poor girl who is going to marry him.” Haha. I was just teasing her of course but its true to a certain extent.

In a similar vein, my husband who was not very close to his mom still finds her care better than mine. He often laments that I do not know how to care for his food like washing them properly (like his mom) and making sure he gets his fruits and taking care not to put too much sugar into his food etc. (The fact that he eats biscuits after every meal is besides the point.) He tells me that his mom told him that you should not take watermelon because the seeds are no good (so he hates it when I give him watermelons).  He tells me to get rid of the sprouts from the potatoes because his mom told him they’re bad. She’s right of course and I do get rid of them but he’d still remind me anyway because his mom told him. Beware moms. Your words will stay with your kids a whole lifetime. Lol.

So when he was down with the same bad cough as I am, he moaned and groaned and said “At least when my mom was alive, there was somone to care for me when I am sick. Now……” Aiyoyo! So of course I ignored him for the entire evening afterwards. Hahaha. To which he moaned and groaned some more the next day about how no one came to make sure he was alright while he was resting with a bad headache with fever while his wife just played with the kids. l0l. Next time don’t make such statements then you will have someone to fuss over you loh. Men! They’re such babies when they are sick.

I have the same bad cough and you don’t see me complaining as much and I have no one to “take care” of me as well when I am sick. When I cough, I have to hold on to my sides or bend over in a certain manner because otherwise my caesarean wounds or something lose inside hurts like crazy. I also have to do some quick kegel exercises when I cough or else I will leak since I have slight incontinence after the babies. That means, when I cough or laugh hard, I also have to hold on hard down there lah. Despite all this, I still have to take care of the two young kids so I can’t complain.

Well, he may be right that I do not know much about all those secret hand me downs recipes for ailments and good health. See, I even have to write a blog post to ask for help on what to do about a cough. (Thank you very much to all those who responded.) Anyway, my mom passed away young, so whatever knowledge that could have been passed down to me ended there so you can’t blame me. I told him.

I know its too late for most of the readers of this blog to choose a husband because you’ve already got one. So is your husband a “mommy’s boy”? Do you get compared in terms of cooking and doing some other stuff etc? Do you have to “compete” with MIL? Share share? We can rant together about our men here and let the rest of the men out there learn a thing or two about how to treat their wives. Lol!

We are having a rainy season again with rain mostly in the late afternoon and evenings. This is a good time for thieves. Because the heavy rain muffles out sounds and people are more likely to be in their houses instead of outside.

A friend told me that his opposite neighbour had a break-in case during a heavy rain. The thieves came and took away his tv and other big and heavy electronic equipment while he was out during the rain and none of the neighbours were any the wiser because they didn’t hear due to the heavy rain and they were all inside their homes so no one knew.

Well, thieves struck like lighting in the rain in my area during the weekend. They came and took the iron and steel drain covers outside the houses during the rain leaving big wide gaping holes in front of our houses and lots of inconvenience to home owners. (The gaps are dangerous to young children and vehicles not to mention the inconvenience and expense of getting it fixed).  About 10 houses in my row were hit and another 16 houses in another street. They did this at around 5pm in broad daylight. Imagine how bold and brazen they are to just walk up to the fronts of houses and take something that does not belong to them.

My drain cover had been stolen before and I fixed those that had screws on so mine was not stolen. But my left and right neigbours and their neighbours and neighbours all had theirs stolen. They took those that had no screws because time is off the essence. I think they were off before you can say lightning. No one saw them. Not even the guards who were supposed to be doing their rounds because during the heavy rain, they would  most likely have been trying to find shelter instead of going ronda ronda.

Sigh. I just hate it. How the crime rate has risen in recent years. Now, I don’t feel safe anymore, not even in my home which is supposed to be a safe haven. Not everyone can afford to live in gated and guarded communities but even if you were, don’t be too happy. There are inside jobs too. One condominium manager told me that they had to have guards making rounds every hour on every floor even though the tenants disliked it but they had no choice since the thefts come from inside jobs ie from people who rent out the units for several months to do their dirty job. It is hard for them to control that because the so called “tenants” dress smartly and look just like any other tenant, not thieves.

Thefts, snatch thefts etc are so common these days that I am sure you have probably witnessed one or has had someone close to you experienced it before. Care to share? We have no choice but to be more aware and alert of our surroundings from the moment we step out of our houses.

The Olympic Fever begins today on the 8th Day of the 8th Month of the year at 8:08:08pm. You know Chinese lah. Everything also must be auspicious.

I read from my kids McDonald’s newsletter that there are five mascots. They are…

1. A Fish named Bei Bei
2. A Panda named Jing Jing
3. The Olympic Flame Doll called Huan Huan
4. A Tibetan Antelope named Ying Ying
5. A Swallow named Ni Ni

Put them all together and they form the words “Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni” (Meaning Beijing Welcomes You). See? I know a little bit of Chinese. I’m not such a banana afterall.

Anyway, I am rather excited to see the opening ceremony tonight. I think the Olympic Games is a good opportunity to expose or teach the kids about the different countries of the world as well as the various types of sports. Unfortunately, I don’t have Astro, so I can only watch a delayed live transmission by RTM 1. What to do? Miser don’t want to pay. Have to watch delayed loh. Hopefully the transmission will be clear and we won’t miss anything.

For those who are interested to know more about the Olympic Mascots, you can check out this : Beijing 2008 Olympics: What are the meanings of the five mascots? Or you can simply enjoy the following YouTube video on The Mascots of the Olympic Games. The background music you hear in the video is a Chinese Folk song called “Mo Li Hua” or “Jasmine Flower”. My girl sings it in kindy. Very nice.

What makes an attractive person. To me an attractive person is one who is confident yet humble. That is a potent combination yet not easy to find.

Self image, self esteem, self assurance is the best gift we can give to our children. I hope I can teach my children to have a good image of themselves because I never had it. I’m still working on it.

I remember in college, I had a guy friend who had very poor self image. He was rich. He drove a car and the popular girls were drawn to him because of it ie they made use of him to get around. Yet he had no confidence. He started every sentence with “I’m sorry but……….” Years later I bumped into him. He had married and had two kids. He was working as a car salesperson. Yet, he still looked sorry and sad. I don’t know what made him like this.

If there was a scale of 1 to 10 for self assurance, I would rate this person at a 1 and myself at 6 maybe 7. I used to be around 4-5. I am continuing to work on it. I think blogging helps. It helps to repeat and say positive things to oneself. It also helps to have positive reinforcement and you get a lot of those in blogging. You get interaction and positive reinforcement.

However, there is always too much of a good thing. Too much positive reinforcement, too much of “You’re so good in this or that ……..” can make your head big. Then you start to write all sorts of nonsense thinking that you are so good and that you know so much etc etc etc and you start to impose your ideas on others. That makes you a boor and a snob and that is so unattractive. Modesty is still the best policy.

Like everything else in life, it is not easy to strike a balance but you must have balance in all that you do and you must have balance if you want to become a better person.