5-day Week

Since 1st September 2006 Monsieur A has been on a 5-day week work schedule. It is quite a relief for me as well, at least we will get 2 days/week off from work. Unfortunately, tomorrow he has decided he will go to his office - that room on the 5th floor of the CoIT Building of UNITEN. So, I have decided to go shopping with the kids tomorrow (09092006).

Are you wondering why Monsieur A would want to go to his office tomorrow? You see, enrolled for his Phd in the year .....(quite some time ago, and I've forgotten when!!!). Until this very minute he is still a part-time student doing full-time work. My friends would term it as MAHASITUA (MAHASISWA would be more professional, don't you think so?) So, he needs to hibernate and finish what he is suppose to finish, ie. his research on SVM = Support Vector Machine, Pattern Recognition, etc. Any SVM fans???

Tomorrow my eldest daughter, Arifah, plans to go back to UPM. She has been on a one-week semester break, she will resume class on Sept 11 (ring a bell???) but plan to go back to college tomorrow instead of the normal black Sunday evening. As I am writing this piece, Arifah is not back yet. She has gone to KLIA before Maghrib with Bibah or was it Mimi to send off a friend who will be flying to India (Manipal Medical College) to study medicine.

BTW, all of us in the family were fasting today, including my youngest daughter, Atiqah (10 yrs old). Atiqah, was worried because a few times she forgot that she was fasting and more than once she accidentally drank and also ate chewing-gum. I had to tell her that its OK because it was unintentional and that Allah will not penalize her!

WHERE ARE THE BINS?

Today Monsieur A and I went into our car with two bags of unwanted items. One bag contains empty milk cans, sardine cans, etc (basically METAL) and another bag has ketchup bottles, soy sauce bottles, Horlicks bottles, etc (this bag is basically GLASS). We were trying to find the bins (remember the advertisement - orange bin, blue bin, and brown bin) for throwing our metal and glass items.

Well, we thought that we can fine the bins somewhere near to our house but too bad...we had to travel quite a distance ie. to Bangunan PKNS Bangi. Anyway, what was important to us is that we dispose the two bags of items at the proper place so that they may be recycled.

But Monsieur A was telling me his frustrations after he dispose the two bags. It seems the public put all sorts of rubbish in the bins - when it was clearly labelled as KACA or KERTAS or LOGAM. Can't people read? They can, but they have attitude problem. They just do not behave in a way that is acceptable to other people.

In western countries, you would only find bottles inside the bins labelled GLASS, people there even take the trouble of putting the small, circular caps of the bottles into the bins labelled METAL. In Malaysia, the government had to spend so much to educate people on the need to recycle. Learning about recycling is one thing, doing it is another.

OK bloggers, let us recycle. Recycling is very important. The amount of waste we produce daily is enormous. The more we recycle, the more we can reduce waste generated and our local council can reduce on waste management expenditure.

HOW DO MALAYSIANS USE THE ________?

As I have promised in my last entry, I will share with you something that Aiko asked me. Well, it is quite humiliating actually. The thing that Aiko wanted to know from me was – How do Malaysians use the toilet???

I had a hard time explaining because I had to give her some background about how toilets were like in Malaysia 30 years ago compared to the toilets that we have today. I had to tell her that some Malaysians are so used to another type of toilet, so much so that they are not comfortable when they have to sit on the toilet seat. I somehow could sense the thing that is really boggling Aiko’s mind. True enough – her concern was why are the toilet seats dirty as though people stepped on them instead of sit on them!!!

Well, to all of you out there, please teach your children the proper way to use the toilet duduk. It was design for you to sit on it and nothing else!

Well, I do hope that Aiko and family will choose Malaysia as their holiday destination again next time!

AIKO - Seat 19C

Last Thursday I was on a flight from Miri to Kuala Lumpur. I checked-in with a colleague and she was given seat 19A while I got 19B. I was hoping that when we board the plane we will be at our seats before passenger 19C arrived. As the mentioned in an article in MAS's inflight magazine, most often than not, if you ever get the window seat during check-in, the passenger occupying the aisle seat would be there before you. The article claimed that 'the window passenger will arrive at the seat after the aisle passenger is comfortabaly seated' is a theory. And true enough it happened to me and my friend!!! Luckily, passenger 19C was a nice, young girl, may be about Siti Nurhaliza's age (that was what I had in mind when I saw her).
When we have settled down, I politely asked passenger 19C where was she from, if she is alone, etc.....

Passenger 19C's name is Aiko. She is a Japanese who is two years younger than SN. She is on holiday in Sarawak with her parents, an elder sister and her niece. For the whole of the 2 hours-plus journey, Aiko and I talked and talked and talked. (My friend, Sleeping Beauty, was ofcourse sleeping most of the time). Aiko is an English teacher in Japan and showed great enthusiasm to learn Malay. During the Miri-KLIA flight, I managed to teach her satu, dua, tiga, empat, ...sepuluh, nasi goreng (she already knew ayam), ayam goreng, mee goreng. I gave her some general idea about the Malay language - it has no plural nouns and no tenses like in English, no gender forms like French and Arabic. I told her Malay is an easy language to learn, blah....blah....She was motivated and asked me if she can come to Malaysia to study, she asked me whether universities in Malaysia except foreigners, etc.

Aiko and I talked about so many things. Luckily I remembered to give her my professional card and she said that she would email me when she get back to Japan. Before we said goodbye, I gave Aiko's niece some sweets and in return she gave me an origami piece - a polygonal ball (it is something like a ball, but it is not rounded like a ball and it has many edges).

Well, that was my most enjoyable domestic flight on Malaysia's national carrier, MAS!!! Actually, there is something else which Aiko asked me that is worth sharing....I will try to include that in my next entry, insya Allah.

BREAKBONE FEVER

Assalamualaykum everyone. Anyone out there wondering why I was ‘quiet’? Something terrible happened to my first and last daughter. They were both weakly infected by virus. It was no ordinary virus, mind you! Virus brought by the evil mosquitoes!!! Yes indeed! They were taken ill (very ill) due to the dengue fever, or the BREAKBONE FEVER! Yeap, this fatal fever causes severe pain in the joints – it feels like some one is breaking up all your bones!!!

Actually, Atiqah started to have fever on the 2^nd July 2006. My husband took Atiqah to Pusat Rawatan Islam Az-Zahrah (PRIA), Bandar Baru Bangi and an FBC (full blood count) was done. It was at the low end of 200. She continued having high fever and the visit to PRIA on the 5^th July indicated that her FBC is now 106. Upon the paediatrician’s advice Atiqah was admitted to PRIA. I was actually staying in at the Eastin Hotel in Petaling Jaya attending a meeting but had to leave early because of Atiqah’s condition since my husband has gone for his consultancy work in KK, Sabah. (Thank you Pn Nawal for being understanding and allowing me to take care of my daughter. Pn Nawal bt Salleh is my superior at MES, Putrajaya).

My darling Atiqah was warded but Arifah need only repeat her FBC everyday – her FBC did not get too low to call for a ‘stay’ at the hospital, Alhamdulillah, praises to Allah.

Atiqah was at PRIA until the 9^th July. Fortunately, the 10th July 2006 is Atiqah's 10th birthday. Luckily I bought her a present already. Guessed what she got??? A personalised pencil case - I had her name written on the pencil case. She was grinning from ear to ear when I presented her with the pencil case. I am glad the saga is over now. Atiqah was back to school on the 12^th July – the week when all her friends were sitting for the July monthly test. I am yet to get her marks!!! Arifah missed her first day of second year at the new UPM Medical Faculty. She is now almost settled at the new college – seldom comes home. Well, I know it is not easy to be in Med Fac!!! Study Smart, Kakak!!! May you be a doctor for the people, do not be greedy in acquiring material gains, never boast about your success , remember your origin!