Archive for the 'Life Observation' Category

I have a very young voice over the phone. That is not a compliment because I sound really young over the phone. Young as in like a little girl young and not young as in a sexy young lady young.

My good friend Serene, says that I sound like Daisy Duck. Quack! Quack!

Once, I called up my credit card company with an enquiry and the gentleman on the other end asked me “Are you calling on your own behalf?” When I said yes, he told me “I have to check because you sound very young. I have to make sure that it is not a child making a prank call.” A child!!!

The other day I was lamenting in FB about being called “Silai”, then I was happy for a moment because the gas delivery man had called me “Amoy”. As it turned out, he only called me “Amoy” because I was speaking to him over the phone and not face to face. Hmm…… not happy about that.

Tell me my friends, how do you sound like over the phone? Do you bark, growl, whine or quack like Daisy Duck or Minnie Mouse like me? Do you have a low sexy purr, a large growl of a voice or a tiny weeny soft one like me when you speak over the phone? Do you think your telephone voice matches your real one or  your looks and personality?

We got a new toy recently. A GPS. With this toy, as you can imagine, we’ve been doing a lot of driving to faraway places recently. Haha. Just to test it out.

It asked us to turn right at a no right turn. It wanted to make us make a U-turn when we know roughly that the way to go is forward. It refused to take us to our destination. It kept on wanting us to turn back!

It took us to Jalan Hulu Kelang in Shah Alam when we really wanted to go to Ulu Kelang in Ampang. It wanted to take us to some other place called Taipan in Klang when we really wanted to go to Taipan in USJ Subang Jaya.

It led us round and round and round on a wild goose chase. Still, its really interesting and we like it. The verdict is… it helps some but you should still have a general idea of the place you want to go. You should also make sure that the map is taking you to right place as there are many similar street names.

Last night I was stirring a glass of honey and suddenly I was small again, in my mother’s kitchen, drinking the same smelling honey which I had drunk often as a child. Its funny how certain smells can invoke childhood memories almost instantaneously transporting us back through time.

I know many smells remind me of my mother. Smells of peeling or chopping onion reminds me of helping her in the kitchen. Smells of cakes being baked reminds me of mum too. Smells of half boiled eggs reminds me of my dad who took it daily when we were young. Smells of Fish Oil reminds me of, well of Fish Oil taken as a child. Smells of plain white porridge or plain bread dipped in Milo reminds me of being sick as a child etc etc.

Most of my olfactory memories relate to childhood events. So I guess, if I want my children to remember me when they are older, I better go and whip up some good regular cooking of the same foods they love often. A pity, I don’t bake. That would make some good childhood memories.

I realise this year that our many parenting firsts do not end after baby’s first turning over, first crawl, first tooth, first walk etc. After that, we had first walk, first swim, first fall, etc etc. Along the way, we had first smile, first words, and many other firsts. We also had first holidays, first day in kindy, first concert, first test, first school trip without us, first …..

However, this year, we as parents had our many firsts instead. We went to the primary school to register our kid for the first time. We got to know other equally anxious parents doing their first registration too. We had our first school orientation… all in Mandarin as we sat there in awe not understanding a word.

Then we collected our kid’s first report card in primary school. We were nervous when she sat for her first school test, performed at her first piano concert and sat for her first piano exam recently. We were probably more nervous than her worrying that she would be nervous.

At first the firsts we truly enjoyable, the first smile, the first toddler, the first words… But as they grow, the firsts become more and more nerve racking for us. Time flies too and before we know it, we’ll be experiencing their first love, first boyfriend/girl friend, first job, first kid! Help!

Nevertheless, however nerve racking, we love them all. We love all the firsts and we don’t want to miss any firsts at all. We want to be the first to watch and experience the firsts with all our kids because we love them dearly. We wouldn’t miss any firsts, not for anything in the world.

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?