My Gray Week

I’ve been out of the blog world radar for exactly 9 days as I had too much going on in my life…..AS IF! Okay, the truth is, I was too lazy to even write a coherent sentence in my blog. Yup. I was feeling rather crappy. The somber weather’s to blame for my lack of mood: dark, gray, cold...basically all adjectives associated with the word GLOOMY. That’s how I’d describe the weather last week. It was so gray, it almost felt like winter.

Anyway, here’s a running total of what my gray week consisted of. (In the interest of not boring you to tears, I’m only highlighting the significant ones. Overly mundane activities such as changing diapers and usual office work will not be listed)

• Alva had her first visit to the Plunket centre
• We attended a Malaysian student gathering
• My little princess was baptised over the weekend :)

Alva's first visit to the Plunket clinic

Plunket is the country's largest provider of support service for health, development and well being of babies. Even before Alva was born, I have decided to enrol to Plunket care because it is the most established and popular support service in NZ. Upon enrolling to the Plunket programme, a registered nurse named Jane was assigned to provide support and care to me and Alva. Jane had initially made home visits to the house, but after two visits, we were asked to continue the scheduled checks at the Plunket centre instead.

Last Wednesday, we paid our first visit to the centre in Riccarton. I was particularly excited as I was dying to know Alva's weight. The check up started with a routine Q & A regarding Alva's development;  her sleeping habit, feedings and achievements. So much to keep track on and she's only 3 months! Anyway, after the Q & A, it was time for the physical assessment. We had to take her clothes off and weigh her on the scale. My heart flip-flopped when I saw the numbers on the screen: 5.5 kilograms! She'd gained another 750 grams since the last check up. Seeing this, I couldn't help but smile proudly and look at hubby with this expression that said "thanks to me and my breast milk!".  Okay, so maybe I was a bit too much there. Anyway, to make this story short and less corny, let me just say that all is well where Alva is concerned. Jane assured us that her growth is within the normal range and that we are doing a splendid job so far :)

This is Jane

Moving on to the next event...You might want to get a cup of coffee to go with this post, coz this is quite long.

Free Makan

So this happened last Saturday - 3rd October 2009. (Forgive me for my obsession with dates and time. I have this absurd sense of obligation to record each event accurately). There I was in our messy living room, still groggy at 10.45 a.m. I slept very very late the night before as I was busy decorating my virtual farm in Farm Ville - Octavia, if you're reading this, you should know that I owe this new addiction to you ;). That explains my waking up late on Saturday. So, as I was saying, I woke up late and started  planning our activity for the day. The plan was to shop for a special candle for Alva's baptism on Sunday. Other than that, there wasn't any other agenda. Since there wasn't any hurry or anything major to do, I started checking my mails on my UC student account. There was only one message in the inbox, sent on Friday. It read:

Hello Alice 

I wonder whether you know that tomorrow ada meeting KSU KPM or KPT with M'sian postgrads at Afghan Restaurant (Colombo/St.Asaph Street) at 12 -2p.m. You're invited and hope to see you there.

Of course I didn't know coz no one told me! I glanced at the clock, 11.00 a.m. already!! "We have to get there in an hour?!" Mayday!Mayday!Mayday! I hit the panic button and just went to pieces. As you can imagine, the next 50 minutes was spent running around the house in a mad rush. Kelam kabut with a capital K.

We managed to get ourselves ready in record time and dashed to the city. It was fairly easy to find the place and luckily for us there were plenty of parking spaces. We got out of the car and started making our way to the restaurant. When we finally made it across the busy road, we found ourselves facing not a restaurant but a door leading to a staircase. Funny, I thought. Since hubby was pushing Alva in the stroller, I had to go and check to see if the restaurant was indeed upstairs. Alden and I took the stairs and made it to the 1st Floor. I peeked inside and saw what appeared to be a fancy restaurant filled with many hungry-looking Malaysians. I told hubby, who was still waiting downstairs, that we were at the right place.

I pushed the glass door open and made my way into the crowded restaurant. It wasn't easy as I had this 15kg toddler in my arms. Alden just refused (vehemently) to walk into the restaurant and in an effort to avoid an ugly scene, I resorted to carrying him like a baby. When I walked in, conversations came to a shuddering halt and all eyes were on me. There was a minute of silence in the air, like malaikat/ angel limpas kind of moment you know. I was so thankful I had Alden in my arms because he served as my defense mechanism against those judgmental eyes.

They were staring not because I was wearing something fancy or anything. No. It was because I came with a toddler. Everyone else came solo! How could I have known?  I quickly found a table and sat down. Phew! After a few minutes, imagine their surprise when they saw hubby pushing Alva in the stroller, making his way towards me. They must have thought "What? Another baby? Who are these people?" Once again there was a momentary silence. Hubby joined me at the table and we looked at each other, both asking (in telepathy) "What the heck have we gotten ourselves into?" Talk about awkward!

After awhile people started ignoring us and we were happy again. Lalalalala..The guest of honour (a big shot in the Ministry of Higher Education whose name I forgot) came at 1.00pm and everyone stood up to welcome the Datuk and Datin. How very Malaysian! The lovely emcee then delivered her wonderful welcoming speech and to our surprise, included a plea (addressed to the Datuk) to increase our living allowances. Everyone cheered and applauded in support of this. Ha! ha! Then, it was the Datuk's turn to give a speech, taking an agonizing 15 minutes. Finally at 1.35 p.m. lunch was served buffet style. Free Malaysian food for all!

My free meal

The food was simply marvelous! You know that Anton Ego's revelation scene in Ratatouille, where Ego had a moment of euphoria eating the peasant dish? Well, I had that moment when I took a bite of the Tandoori chicken. Terus balik kampung. All the waiting and morning kelamkabutness was worth the effort because we had a really great meal that day. End of story.

This is the last one, I promise :-)

Alva's Christening

I promise you this is going to be brief. Alva and Ryan (Es' son) were baptised last Sunday at St. Patrick's Catholic church, Kaiapoi. It was done during mass and Carmille (Es' friend) had to stand in as a proxy because Alva's real godmother couldn't make it to the baptism (she's in KK!). Everything went really well. She didn't even cry when the priest poured the Holy water over her head. She was an angel! Too bad there were only 3 photos taken during the baptism - and I looked fugly in all of them.  After mass, we had a BBQ feast at Es' place to celebrate our babies' Christening. The End. I told you it was going to be short. I'll let the photos do the talking :-)

Rev. Father Michael, a Malaysian from Kelantan. Small world huh?

Alva and mommy :)

Princess Alva :)

Till the next post, God Bless!

There's nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked cookies

Daylight Saving Time started yesterday and I’m so not loving it. Before DST, we were only 4 hours ahead of Malaysian Standard Time. Now, we’re looking at 5 hours. FIVE HOURS. What's the big fuss? Well, that extra hour makes it a tad more difficult to go on skype with family and friends in KK *Sigh*

Daylight saving time (DST; also summer time in British English) is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. DST's occasional clock shifts present some challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel and sleep patterns.

  - Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia

Because of the chaos of daylight savings, my sleeping habit is a bit messed up too. Before DST, I normally get up at 8.30 in the morning. Today, I got up at 9.30 a.m. Why did I get up at 9.30 a.m? Because the clock said so!

I guess all these DST-related things take a little bit of getting used to.

Despite all my complaints about DST, I was in a very good mood this morning. I woke up wide-eyed, ready to take on the day. My energy level was up and I suddenly had this unexplainable urge to bake - something I don’t normally do on a regular basis. So in an attempt to fulfill this urge, I decided to bake Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Actually, it wasn’t really a decision. It’s the only recipe I know and thanks to CL and sis, all the ingredients were in my pantry.

So I started. I had this vision of CL’s freshly baked oatmeal cookies, all golden brown and yummy and beautiful. Enthusiastic, I took out the sacred recipe from my hand bag,  measured all the ingredients and followed the instructions conscientiously. There was no agak agak. I even used Alden’s syringe to measure the vanilla essence because I wanted to make sure everything was done according to the recipe. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I was finally done when it suddenly hit me. I had no raisins! The recipe says Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and now I have to omit the word raisin from this recipe? I panicked. No raisins! No raisins! No raisins! What to do?

After a few minutes of contemplation (should I drive to COUNTDOWN and get the sultanas? or should I just forget about baking?), I decided to continue without the raisins. That was probably the biggest decision I’ve made today.

It took me an hour and 35 minutes to get the batter done. 

This is the first batch. The instruction says, bake for eight to ten minutes until golden brown. I popped them in the oven and waited exactly ten minutes. As you can see, it was a near-disaster...I didn't bother checking the oven.

The second batch wasn't so bad...

 When I was done, my assistant helped me with the scraping.....

 doing a really good job at it...

a lot of licking...

and the verdict is....?

They're yummy! His face says it all...

and this is a hidden Mickey just for Alden

My oatmeal cookies didn't turn out the way I wanted but they were delicious nonetheless. For someone like me whose baking skills are limited, I consider this a huge success :-)

You might want to try this recipe. It's so simple!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients

170g butter

200g white sugar

2 eggs

5ml vanilla extract

155g flour

5g baking soda

3g salt

225g rolled oats/ quick cooking oats

200g raisins

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°c

2. In large bowl, ceam together butter & sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs + vanilla until fluffy. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually beat into butter mixture. Stir in oats and raisins.

3. Drop onto cooking sheets.

4. Bake for 10 minutes in oven until golden brown.

*courtesy of Caroline Lee

Good luck!

Goofy Saturday

I woke up this morning with the words BIRTHDAY- AMIR - MCDONALDS – PRESENT - flashing in my head. They lingered in my brain, like flickers of words in a digital signage. It was really annoying cause I couldn't make it stop - the whole flashing thingy. After a few seconds of grogginess, I shook my head and somehow managed to decipher the word puzzle. It simply meant: NEED TO ATTEND BIRTHDAY PARTY AT MCDONALDS, AT 10.30 AM – GET A PRESENT FOR AMIR’S SON (Btw, Amir is my office mate).

So it was already 9.15 a.m. and I was the only one up. Hubby and the kids were still in slumberland, snoring away in oblivion. Ahhh...with a heavy heart, I woke them up hesitantly and started getting ready. We showered, dressed, packed baby bag and Alden’s toys, put baby in the capsule and got in the car. Phew! Getting ready with two little people is like going on a packing marathon.

Now where was I? Right. To McDonalds. We still needed to get a present for Sina (Amir’s son) so we headed to Westfield Riccarton. I bought him a Lego-like construction set which was on-sale and wrapped it up in the car. Can you imagine how very kelam kabut I was? Well anyway, we were finally ready to attend the birthday party and I was all excited and smiling. We went into a very crowded McDonalds and headed straight to the function room, where the party was held.

Amir and his wife welcomed us cheerfully and got Alden a chair. It was obvious that the party was meant for kids and kids alone. All the parents were standing up, watching their little tots sit together, having their own little happy meals. A really cute sight! Alden was a bit uncomfortable with the crowd because most of the kids were bigger than his usual 3-year-old acquaintances in Pre School. But after awhile, he was okay. Alva was in her own baby world, happy and contented.

 *Now I’ll switch to BM coz takut nanti tu kawan sia terbaca ni blog.

Dukacitanya, kami semua tiada makan breakfast jadi kelaparan gila la kami (kecuali Alden and Vava). Ibu bapa nda kena kasi makan. Kena suruh datang bawa anak saja, tapi I wasn't aware of this. Kena kasi sedia kupi 3 in 1 sama air panas and biskut dlm tin bulat saja. Doi dogo. Style layan diri la ba ni. Mcm dua org saja parents pi minum tu kupi habis kena letak di saaaaaaaaaaana pelusuk ba, susa mau ambi. Semua pun mcm kelaparan and nda sabar mau pulang habis mau dekat lunch time suda and org datang dari 10 am lagi. Lain kan???? Kami expect mcm birthday party McDonald di KK la, ada makan for ibu bapa. I mean, normal la ba tu kan? Culture shock juga, tapi nda apala, kami tahan lapar ja. Kalau kami order something, nanti awkward juga tu situation coz kami suda masuk tu function room and susa mau keluar. So after 1 jam, kami said bye bye, Alden dapat party pack and then kami tapuk tapuk pi tapau McDonald. Kami beli yg sana Drive Thru. Hehe. 

So we were home and we had our own little feast. Hubby and I talked about the party and the cake and how awkward Alden behaved. He didn't enjoy himself at the party. That was obvious. I knew he wanted to join the other kids, but was too tensed to do so. But it’s okay. At home, in his comfort zone, he sort of relived the whole party scene and spent the whole day goofing around with his dad.

In reflection, today has been quite an interesting Saturday for me. I learned a thing or two about birthday parties and that is: to prepare early when attending one and never ever go with perut kosong :-)

 

Pilot work

So it’s official – I’m going to start my pilot study tomorrow! I have gotten the green light from the Academic manager of College X and ten international students enrolled in an ESL course will become my samples. So far, everything is going according to plan. I know it’s no big deal, just a pilot study with 10 students, small scale really. But knowing how dramatically tensed I can get over the smallest thing, I’m not taking any chances and will make sure every aspect of this study is looked into. There’s no margin for error. If I sound pathetic, it’s just my way of saying "I'm freaking out!". After all, it has been quite some time since I walked into a classroom.

Everything has been prepared since Tuesday; the handouts, questionnaire, stop watch, candies (for reward), attire and my black stilettos that shout “I mean business!”. Today, I could’ve just stayed home. But it just didn’t feel right. I thought I should be doing something productive rather than spend time babysitting at home. So after dropping Alden off at Pre School, I headed to the office and to my delight, saw this on my table.

The tulips cheered me up. Marilyn (in pic) brought them because I told her I had never seen real ones in my life. So being the kind soul that she is, she brought a few varieties of tulips and put them on my table. Isn't she sweet?

I spent 15 minutes oggling at the tulips, paying more attention to the one with the crinkly petals. When Marilyn brought them in this morning, they were still closed. But as the temperature in the room got warmer, they began to open. According to Marilyn, they are closed in the morning, evening, and in the shade. They will only open in the sun or when the weather gets warm. Anyway, my favourite is the one in bi-colour; purple with tinges of white.

After revelling in my own sakainess for about an hour, I decided it was time to do work. It was already 3.00 p.m. and I only had 90 minutes before Alden got off from school. I started doing some revisions, looking at my measures and rehearsing the procedures for tomorrow. After 15 minutes, I was done. A chunk of the afternoon was then spent on the internet; chatting, reading blogs, yahoo news and checking my mails. What have I accomplished today? Pretty much nothing ;-)

At 4.50 p.m. I got out from the office and called it a day. A very short day.

Many fine things can be done in a day if we don't always make that day tomorrow. This is quite right. But in my case right now, those fine things will have to wait till tomorrow. I'll wake up early, spend an hour getting ready, meet my samples, follow all procedures and end the session with a box of Cadbury candies. I should be okay...que sera sera...

A day of celebration - 19.09.09

I was six years old when my mom brought home our very first birthday cake. It was for my sister’s 10th birthday celebration and we had this small little party at home. Until today, the image of the cake is still vivid in my memory - a round cake covered with chocolate butter cream and sprinkles of chocolate rice. Cakes in those days, the 1980s to be exact, were just butter cream. They were yummy to the eyes but not to the taste buds. Regardless of that, my sister’s birthday marked a very important event in our household. It started the birthday cake tradition and introduced us to the rituals of blowing candles, making a wish and unwrapping gifts. And that was exactly 25 years ago – 19.9.1984.

Ever since my mom started the birthday cake tradition, I have been infatuated with birthdays. I love celebrating birthdays and I used to be so obsessed with the idea of having a perfect birthday, getting the perfect gift and wearing the perfect outfit. But now that I’m in Kampung Riccarton, I realized what I miss most is not the party, the gifts or the cake. What I really miss is that moment we sing “Happy Birthday” to the birthday girl/ boy. That moment of togetherness and joy you share with your family and friends. That’s what makes a birthday special.

Today, as my sister celebrates her 35th birthday (sorry to remind you sis!) I will be here, cheering from afar. I may not be able to share that moment of togetherness this year but I’ll sure be there next year. Have a splendid birthday!

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Jack Benny

And what does your birth date say about you? - 19.09.09- Here are the answers...

• You are resilient, and no doubt your resilience has already been tested. (True!)
• You've had some difficult experiences in your life, but you are wise from them. (True!)
• Having had to grow up quickly, you tend to discount the advice of others. (Only those who pandai-pandai advise)
• You tend to be a loner, having learned that the only person you can depend on is yourself. (Hmm..what do you think cha?)
• Your strength: Well developed stability and confidence (Ya...and being meticulous)
• Your weakness: Suspicion of others (Betul oh ni)
• Your power color: Eggplant (Enda tau la ni)
• Your power symbol: Spade (This is crap)
• Your power month: October (Maybe la)

If you want to find out the meaning of your own birth date, click on this link http://www.blogthings.com/