Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
I did not open a Facebook account for a long time because I thought to myself. Where can I find the time? I have 4 blogs to maintain for fun and peanuts so where can I find the time. The same goes for Twitter. Besides, Facebook as its name suggest requires a face doesn’t it? Apparently not. I choose to maintain my avatar and so do many others.
However, more and more bloggers were migrating to Facebook, some even abandoning their blogs to devote their time to Facebook. Lets face it, there is only that many hours in a day. So how do you maintain your blog in the face of such a situation? I guess there is no other way. If you don’t want to give up your blog, you have to find a way to let all those people on Facebook and Twitter find you easily.
So that is what I did. First, I opened a Twitter and Facebook account. Now, the problem is how do I share my blog posts on Facebook and Twitter easily, preferably with one click? Like I said, there is only that many hours in a day. If I spend my day sharing on Facebook, I will have no time to blog and bloghop. At first I tried the NetworkedBlog application. It is a good method for showing your blog on Facebook but I don’t like the fact that the links open up in a frame on networkedblog. It does not go directly to your page. Readers have to click again to go to your page so it does not increase your pageviews.
Well, now I have found a way and I would like to share it with all my blogger friends.
Here is how to do it. First, you go to AddThis.com to make a button and install it on your blog. It is very easy. No registration is required. Just go and generate a button and install it on each blog post, NOT on your sidebar. Installing it on your individual blog post makes sharing much easier. After you have installed it, it will look something like what you find on this post, right below the title and date.
Now, whenever I blog, all I have to do is click on the Twitter button. It will open up the Twitter page with my blog post title and a shortened mini url for Twitter purposes. I can add any text I like then I click submit and voila! My Twitter is updated with my latest blog post and at the same time my Facebook (which is linked to my Twitter via the Twitter application on Facebook) is updated with that very same one click. I am not sure whether you have to link your Facebook and Twitter but somehow when I click on the Twitter button above, it updates BOTH my Twitter and Facebook at the same time. If I am more hardworking, I will click on the share on Facebook button and provide an excerpt and a catchy title plus some remarks that will appear on my Facebook status update.
I highly recommend doing this to all bloggers who are blogging for peanuts and especially those who have a few blogs. Your goal is to get higher page impressions and more visitors for your advertisers. This is one way to do it. If you have several blogs, this is even better. It helps your friends and followers keep up with your latest updates on ALL of your blogs on one page whichever social networking site they may prefer whether it is Twitter or Facebook. Sorry, I only limit to two social networking sites because those are the sites I am on. I also use Blogger Buzz but I will not go into that here.
Your readers can easily click on any of your blog post if they have the time and inclination and it makes it so much easier for them to follow than having each and every one of your blogs on their blog reader and trying to know when you update which blog. Nowadays many people have several blogs and it is hard to keep up with each and every one of them for each and every blogger on your blogroll. This makes it easier for everyone. They can then choose what they want or don’t want to read.
You can make it even easier for them, by adding a Facebook Like Button on your blog post like I have done. (Just below my sharing button) Then if your reader does not have time to comment but likes your post they can just click on that like button. All you need to do is google “How to Install Facebook Like Button” and you will get lots and lots of instructions telling you how to do it. 
So what are you waiting for? Go do it now! Then tell the world.. go tell your readers, I mean. Announce it on your Twitter, Facebook and Blog. Make it easier for everyone to follow you whatever method they may choose to do so.
I installed the sharing button from AddThis as well as the Facebook Like button on all of my blogs so now I can share all my blog posts from all my blogs with one click. However, my Parenting Times blog is using the Classic Blogger template. That was harder to install. I had to figure out how to do it manually on my own. Took me a whole day to figure it out! So if you notice, the buttons on that blog look a bit different than those from this blog or my Mothering Times blog. You can also checkout my Facebook page and my Twitter page to see how my blog updates look like on Facebook and Twitter. And hey, if you like this blog post, why not click on my Facebook Like button above (below the title and date and sharing buttons) and see what happens?
Oh, I forgot to mention. I installed these buttons for my own use but if lets say you have those buttons and someone likes your post, they can easily share it on their Facebook and Twitter pages in the same manner. They or you can even email the link to your blog post. All you have to do is place your mouse over the “share” word and a list will appear making it easy for you to email (an email form will appear and all you have to do is fill in the to and from columns then add any comment of your own), bookmark or share it on any of the listed networking sites you prefer. Do test it out. Its really cool.
If you have any specific questions, you can put it in the comment section to share with all or email me directly. Have a happy weekend everyone!
My girl tells me that many of her friends who cater food at school also buy extra food or bring food from home and they will eat only what they want to eat and waste the rest.
My girl also has a set of almost new books given to her by an acquiantance who wanted to throw them away because her son no longer needs them. She had bought a set of extra books for the boy so that they boy could have one set of schoolbooks in school and one set at home.
Perhaps the mother in question had wanted to do so because she thought that it would be easier on the shoulders and backs for her child so that he would not have to cart the books to and from school. However, looking at the state of the books, almost new and untouched, it was probably not necessary.
Every parent wants the best for their child. However sometimes we go overboard as in the case of the parents who give the child extra money to buy food or give them food from home even though there is catered food at school just because they are afraid the child would not eat up.
Our excess is buying too many books and toys. Actually I think books are fine but toys are not. So what is your excess?
I have lagged in my exercise routine because I have not been feeling well as well as some other issues I have been facing. Lagging in exercise and diet means no weight loss.
On, the other hand, the man has had some health issues, so he started dieting and exercising more. Well, his willpower has always been better than mine. When he wants to do something, he does it. Simple as that. As a result, he lost 15 pounds in 2 months. Waaaahhh! Now I will look like his older sister!
Now, what I am curious about is… why is it that when a man loses weight, there is no excess loose skin hanging about, no cellulite dangling around, nothing. His weight simply vanishes. He is simply leaner. Whereas, if a woman were to lose weight, she’d look haggard (usually in the face), and there is bound to be loose skin dangling around especially in the stomach area.
It is not fair. IT IS NOT FAIR!
Ok. Done venting. I am going to do some exercise now and go eat some maggi mee afterwards so there!
I don’t like to go to a hair salon. My tolerance level at a hair salon is probably for about 30 minutes only. Beyond that, my mind would race about all the things I have to do and should be doing and will probably be doing if I were not there stuck in a chair with my hair wet. I hate all sorts of hair treatment, perming, colouring, straightening, whatever.
The only thing I enjoy is a hairwash. Ahh… bliss… It is very nice to sit back and have your head massage and to feel warm water flowing down your tresses without getting all wet…. although you do sometimes get wet and the head massage is a tad too hard and the water is either too cold or too hot.
Apart from a hairwash, I hate everything else, the waiting especially, the small talk and chatter…. though a haircut may sometimes make my head feel lighter afterwards.
What I hate the most is the fact that most of the time I will be asked whether I would like to buy this shampoo or that conditioner, whether I would like to have a facial, etc.
The most “unsual” request I’ve had is whether I would like to buy some pearls and during CNY it was whether I would like to buy some Chinese New Year cookies! That was the last straw. I haven’t visited the hair salon since then. I’m afraid I am too busy for hair salons.
My maid’s work permit was for a 2 year contract when we first took her in. It has to be renewed on a yearly basis thereafter. Her passport is for 3 years. However, if we were to renew her work permit for another year, her passport would expire before the 3rd year is up. Therefore, we have to renew her passport as well.
I was very blur about the procedure for renewing maid’s work permit and passport as I had not done it before. So I made a few calls ie to the Agent, Fomema (where you go for health screening for foreign workers) as well as the Imigration.
I will write the process for renewing maid’s work permit and passport here for my own benefit so that I will remember it later on. Perhaps it will help some others too and that is a good thing and perhaps some would like to share their experience too and that is an even better thing.
So here goes. As far as I know, here are the following steps if the agent were to handle the maid’s passport and work permit renewal.
- Bring the maid to the agent to stay overnight at the agent’s for renewing passport. The agent will then arrange for the maid to go to the Indonesian Embassy and queue up very early in the morning to get the passport renewal done. (This is required by my agent, others may differ) Charges: RM350
- Once the passport has been renewed, the agent will do the registration with Fomema for health screening to be done. Agent will then call us up to bring the maid to a clinic near the agent’s for a blood and urine checkup as well as an X-Ray.
- Once the medical is approved, the agent will get the work permit done at the Imigration Department and call us up to collect the passport with the extended work permit. Charges: RM895
Note: Total Charges if done by agent = RM350 + RM895 + RM97 (for insurance) = RM1342. Work permit is renewed for 1 year. Passport is renewed for 3 years.
Below is the process if we were to handle the maid’s passport and work permit renewal ourselves.
- Bring maid to Indonesian Embassy to renew passport. Documents required = Old Passport. Cost=RM20 (Please note that this is the approximate cost as given to me by the agent. I do not know the actual cost as I have not done the renewal). The agent also informed me that no photos are required these days as all will be done at the Embassy.
- Go to Fomema to register maid for health screening. Make payment and select a Fomema approved clinic. Fomema will provide you with 4 forms yellow, white, green and pink. Bring the yellow form to the allocated X-Ray facility for the clinic of your choice to do X-Ray. Bring remainder 3 colour forms to the Fomema approved clinic you selected to do blood and urine tests. Some doctors have X-Ray facilities too so you may want to select those to save on running around time. Cost:RM190
- Once, the maid has passed the medical, you may then go to Imigration office to apply for work permit extension. I am not sure of the documents required. Cost:445
Note: Total cost for extending your maid’s passport and work permit yourself is RM20 + RM190 + RM445 = RM655.
The agent informed me that the maid will be interviewed by the Embassy to ensure that her minimum pay for extension is RM600.
Fomema Health Screening is required for extension of work permit up to from 2nd year going to 3rd year only. For extension of work permit from 3rd year going to 4th year onwards, it is no longer required. So a trip to Imigration may be all that is required subsequently.
Imigration accepts cash or bank draft as payment. I am not sure of Fomema. It is stated on the website as bank draft, money order or postal order.
Please take note that the cost and charges involved are as quoted to me by the relevant agencies at the time of writing and may change. Different agents may do it differently and charge differently as well. This is just to give you a rough idea of the cost and processes involved. As I have mentioned, I have not gone through the process yet so the cost and documents required may not be entirely accurate. If you wish to do the renewal process yourself, do check up with the relevant agencies on the documents you require so that you get it right the first time.
Links to agencies:
- Fomema Registration Procedures
- Imigration Department of Malaysia’s Official Website
- Embassy of the Rebulic of Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur
Below are links to articles and blog posts which I found useful (Please note that some articles are dated from as way back as 2006 so the information may be still useful but outdated.
Links to newspaper articles:
Links to blog posts:
- Maid Permit Renewal
- Maid’s Passport Collection turned nightmare
- How to renew work permit for your Indonesian Maid
Links to Forums:
The time has flown. It is almost 2 years now since we got our first maid. I remember my apprehension about bringing a stranger into my home with so many maid horror stories I heard.
However, we are happy with our maid’s work so far and I hope……, she is happy with us.
Recently, I spoke to her about extending her work permit.
“You have worked for us for almost 2 years now. Would you like to continue?”
I was really happy when she looked a bit embarrassed and said …
“M’aam, I have been wanting to ask you this question for months now but I was too shy to ask. I wanted to ask you whether you would allow me to continue working with you.”
We had a talk about her working conditions, whether she was bored or had any unhappiness she wanted to bring up. She said there was none. She said she was happy, that she had enough to eat, enough time for rest and she was happy that we took her out with us to the movies etc. She said she was happy to have found good employers and she does not want to risk going back and starting over with new employers.
I told her that we are also happy to have found a good maid. Hopefully, we can continue our win win situation.
Today …. marks 3 years from that day my body played an April Fool’s Joke on me and gave me 3 seizures in a day.
I can look at it in 2 ways…
- I can be unhappy about it when I look back and reflect or
- I can be thankful that everything is under control now
I choose no. 2.
Today….. dad has another awakening. “Awakening” means we get the old dad back for a day or two. The old dad that dementia took away from us. The last time he had an awakening was on March 13. On that day, he took out his angpow packets and started packing all the angpows for all the birthdays that is coming up soon for any of his children or grandchildren so that he won’t forget. On that day, he “woke up” and said “Chinese New Year is over and I didn’t know it. I better pack all the angpows ready before I forget.”
He gave me the advanced angpow for my son’s birthday in April. Upon seeing this, my daughter quickly took out a piece of paper and wrote in Chinese… “Kong Kong, my birthday is on 21st May.” Then she slipped the note to kong kong.
Today, dad, remembers that day clearly as though it was yesterday. For him, it probably was ‘yesterday’. The rest of the days pass by in a blur to him. He tells me, “tell your daughter, I will remember her birthday. I know she was trying to get an advanced angpow from me too but unfortunately I did not have enough cash that day. I will definitely come for her birthday.”
Sadly, when that day comes, he may not remember it if it is not an awakening day. That is the way dad is. We get to see snippets of his old self about once or twice a month. On these days he will be so full of life, active and talkative, as if wanting to make up for all the lost time in between. He would not be able to sleep at night. Sometimes he calls up in the wee hours of the morning to chat. And after that he will be so tired, he will sleep for 2 days, only getting up for meals which he picks on without appetite and medication before falling back to sleep or not getting up for meals at all.
I can look at it 2 ways….
- Sad at having lost dad to dementia or
- Happy that he is otherwise in good health and we still get to see him the way he is before dementia every once in a while
I choose no. 2
Previously I had written a post on What is the process of renewing maid after 2 years. I had very useful feedback. Thank you to all those who commented. There were also some who asked the same questions as I did. For those, I would like to share some information which I got from my agent.
After speaking to the agent, I realised that my maid’s passport expires a year later but not enough to cover one more full year of work permit so I have to renew both the work permit as well as the passport. The agent tells me that the fees for renewal are RM350 to renew passport for 3 years. In addition it will cost RM895 to renew the work permit for 1 year plus an extra RM97 for insurance costs.
If we wish the agent to renew the passport, we have to drop the maid at the agent’s on a Tuesday evening. Arrangements will then be made for the maid to queue up at the embassy on early Wednesday morning. However, the agent tells me that if we have the time, we can renew the passport ourselves. It will only cost about RM20 if we do it ourselves but we must be prepared to spend at least 1 whole day at the embassy. All we need to bring is the passport. There is no need to prepare and bring along passport photos with a red background as before as all photos will now be taken at the embassy. So just bring yourself, your maid and her original passport.
2 months before the maid’s work permit expires, we must bring the renewed passport to the agent to renew the work permit (assumming we wish the agent to do the renewal process for us). The new salary under the Embassy Contract is a minimum of RM600. The Indonesian Embassy will interview the maid to find out whether the employer will be paying them this amount.
According to the agent, it is then up to us whether to send the maid home for a short holiday. We must pay for the flight. It is also up to us how much we wish to increase the maid’s salary by as long as we comply with the minimum of RM600.
That is all the information I got from the agent. Hope that helps those who asked. For others, perhaps we can compare costs….
Despite my recent laments about the workload and bagload for the kids, I do not regret sending my child to a Chinese School. I know some parents who do though. When my child was about to enter Std 1 in the school last year, I ran into a friend who was planning to take his Std 2 kid out.
If you had read my earlier posts, you would know about how hard I struggled over the decision on which type of school to send my child. I think many other parents struggle over this decision too.
My girl is in Std 2 in a Chinese School now and we are overall happy with the school.
- My girl loves to study Chinese. She tells me it is very interesting. She likes the way there is a story behind each Chinese Character. She likes to make words and sentences in Chinese. Of all the 3 languages she studies, she likes Chinese best, English second and Malay third. She has a good command of English since we have been reading lots of books in English from young. Perhaps that is why she does not find it that challenging. Her library at home is more extensive than mine so her English vocabulary and spelling comes naturally. She likes to challenge herself and when I praise her for her sentence making in Chinese or Malay, she is delighted. She is happy that her Chinese is improving and getting better than mummy’s each day.
- We find the teachers at the school motivated and hardworking. It is not their fault that they dish out a lot of homework etc. They too are under pressure to complete the syllabus. It is the whole system that needs to be reviewed. More work from more workbooks does not necessarily create smarter children. Children need play and rest too. Quite often physical education classes and art classes are taken away and replaced by more academic lessons. That is not the way. They are equally important.
- Discipline in school is good, not excessive as we had initially feared. She grumbles about school like any kid would and not anymore than that. She does not hate or fear school that much, only enough to get things done. We were initially afraid that punishment in a Chinese School would be excessive and she would fear and hate school but so far it has not been the case. My girl does all her work and likes to study for her spelling etc diligently so in that area she is fine, she gets scolded by the teacher for talking in class which she likes to do. That is very normal. Also, from my conversations with her, I have not heard of any excessive punishments even for the very naughty boys in class.
- The school’s facilities are very good and it is progressive. Every now and then there are new developments and improvements. New walkways, new shelters, new plants etc. We do our part and donate to the school to keep these improvements coming.
That is it. So far we are happy. I don’t know about later on when the pressure heats up for UPSR. From next year she may have to stay back in school till up to 4pm for most days for extra UPSR lessons as well as extra curricular activities. At the moment we do not attend any.
My only wish is that there will be a little less homework. My children are very disciplined. They have homework time and they do it without complain although like most children they play, chat, day dream etc if left unsupervised. I find that even with their correct attitude towards homework, there is often not enough time for them to rest and play.
Their day mostly consist entirely of school, meals, sleep (not enough of it, we struggle to find the time) and homework (which takes up sleep time not to mention play time). That is it. It is not a very healthy lifestyle. Fortunately, not all days are like this. We have taught our girl to try to do her work in school. (This is a “trick” a friend taught us). She does this at times, competing with her friends to see who finishes first. On those days, her load is lighter, then she has more time for sleep, but still not enough time to play.
What about you? Are you happy with the decision you made about your child’s school so far? Will you share please?
Continued from previous post.
Talking about simple, my girl often gets scolded during computer class because she is slow to understand. When she tries to ask her friend for help the teacher admonishes her and tells them not to help her. “Let her do it herself” she says. Maybe she has good intentions in wanting her to learn but isn’t asking for help when you don’t know a way of learning too?
When I look at the book, I get angry. The terms used etc and the way in which it has been written looks like a book for an adult! Even an adult who has no computer knowledge would have difficulty understanding it let alone a 7-8 year old kid! Why can’t they simplify it? They syllabus and content looks very hard.
For example, the first chapter talks about The Internet. It goes on to say that “First, you must have a computer. Second, you must apply for an Internet account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP). You must also have a modem.” Once you have all of the above, you have to install a special software in your computer system to go on to the internet. The special software is called a browser. Examples of a browser are “Internet Explorer” and “Moxilla Firefox”
Try explaining that to a 7 year old? Computer class which should be a fun and exciting class has turned out to be a hateful subject for my girl and I don’t blame her.
