More than just an accountant

This news came as quite a shock yesterday, from my sister. A female member of her church passed away after a six-year battle with cancer.  I got to know of her cancer a few years ago and was under the impression that she had survived the disease.   Out of curiosity, I went on to read her blog.  I knew the existence of her blog for quite a while but never bother to read it. Aren't humans like that? They only bother to learn or appreciate a person when he or she is no longer in this world.  I am no different.  I decided to read her blog to find out how she struggled against this silent killer. But, strangely, I was led to read page by page of her story.  Her family members have their own blogs too. I believe the writing genes runs in the family.  Her 'success' in raising outstanding kids intrigues me.  Perhaps, you may enjoy it too, Lion City Girl .

My order delivered by Skynet It didn't come in a box Taa..daa..my handbag After a one month-and-five-day wait, I finally received my order. The entire ordering process was rather smooth.  After making payment online (either via fpx or credit card), a confirmation of order will be received via email.  The expected delivery date will be advised even before the order is placed.   It came via the courier which took another 3 days upon advice that the item was delivered. If only my handbag comes in a box.  What if the bag gets crushed in the process of delivery and what I receive is an imperfect bag?  Anyway, this one here is a perfect one! After talking so long, I bought this from Groupon.  One word of caution! Don't just rely on the image or photos in the email.  Check the dimension of the item you wish to purchase.  I thought that this bag is bigger. I never wanted a small bag like this.  Anyway, it was my fault for not ...

No, this steak house is not serving fish ball.  Neither did we bring serviettes from a steak restaurant and used them at a restaurant serving fish ball noodles. We were savouring our fish food when out of curiosity one of us flipped over a serviette and My! it was one from a steak house called Bayleaf.  Our next natural reaction was to flip over the serviette on each plate of fish side-orders. Lo and behold, all the serviettes were Bayleaf's. When it comes to doing business, recycling is not something that should be done at the expense of the customers. A few questions popped up in our mind.  This scenario reminds us of how we always recycle serviettes we get whenever we eat at eateries.  Maybe this owner used to own a restaurant called Bayleaf and they were trying not to exhaust their stock of serviettes.  Again, how long have these serviettes been kept? We never know. Any restaurant could have kept their stock for nobody knows how long. Whatever that we ...

Chicken was substituted by 'char siew' How ridiculous can they be? Prawn noodle without any prawns.  Upon seeing this or rather not confirming the absence of prawn in my bowl of prawn noodle, I gestured to the waiter. He apologetically returned with a small plate of prawns and said,"They forgot." In my next visit to this same Old Town restaurant near my house, I faced the same absurdity.  This time, my son's bowl of chicken hor fun was without chicken.  And, this time I was not lucky. I was not greeted with any apologetic or pleasant face. The supervisor came to our table, confirm what I said and did not return.  Another waiter came with a small plate of 'char siew' as pictured.  There's no explanation why there's no chicken for my chicken hor fun.  The supervisor didn't even bother to explain, not to mention apologise. Such is the sorry state of customer service in our country!

After months of consideration, I finally parted with a few hundred ringgit for this gadget, claimed to be the top 10 digital camera .  I made the decision to purchase this camera only after reading this review despite being fed with advertisements claiming the wonder of Canon Powershot digicams as well as seeing promoters demonstrating their products in roadshows. But, always a freak when it comes to high-tech gadgets like this, using it (and not just keeping it) hands-on will definitely be easier as time goes.  Gotta get back to familiarizing myself with this handy wonder sleek cuboid.

It's a dream come true for me. Before 2009 for more than one and a half decades, I had always wished to have long breakfast without the need to hurry to work after that.  Breakfast used to be in a hurry, keeping tab of time so as not to be late to the office, while hurriedly savouring whatever delicious breakfast on the table.  Seldom taking more than 30 minutes, breakfast outside was and still is a must before the day begins. Breakfast used to be a meal while at the same time thinking about what's going to be in store for me as I stepped into my office.  Now, breakfast is more relaxed.  Stress is still indispensable from my life but of a different type.  I don't have to worry anymore about inquisitive stares from colleagues if I walked into the office late, whether I had delivered what I promised the other day,  from subordinates whether I would give them a good appraisal since they had worked hard, from bosses whether I could meet the reporting deadlin...

This was the third time I entered a bank to pay my car mortgage after two unsuccessful attempts and I could only do it at night, a few minutes before my mortage is considered 'late'. Thankfully, there are two cash deposit machines, and this one pictured was apparently 'rosak' or 'spoilt'.  What if there was only one cash deposit machine and it was spoilt?  Or both machines were not functioning? I would definitely be late for my mortgage payment and would this bank be responsible for my latepayment? I didn't ask for the bank to be having downtime for a few hours on that day.  And, I had to frequent the bank two times to be able to carry out a basic but urgent transaction. Sigh...such a hassle just to pay my monthly commitment.

This sign stands tall at one of the busiest junction at Ampang.  It caught my attention when an irony happened. Just next to the sign was this sight. Notice the bags of rubbish near the TNB control panel? We have a pronouncement of being clean but the surrounding speaks of the reverse. So, what is the standard of 'clean'? 

We used to write down our ambitions on school cards we needed to submit at the end of the year.  I can remember vividly my early dream was to be a Hotel Administrator or a Hotel Manager.  Being quite a perfectionist (I realise my perfectionism is only in certain aspects of my life), I chose to write Manageress instead of Manager. At one point, I even aspire to be an urban planner. How ambitious was I! I wanted to 'rule' then. I wanted to decide what should there be in a city, how to manage the city. But, my dream was shortlived. I couldn't recall what was the reasons for giving this up. The following year, I kept to my real profession 'Accountant' as my ambition. Being a secretary and a teacher were my last two choices.  For the former, it was due to the influence of my sisters who were all in this field. A teacher, not something that I was very proud of as I know that a teacher doesn't earn a lot of money.  However, I do know that it's a noble p...

Just because the system is down doesn't mean customers should be disallowed to enter the bank.  This doesn't just happen once to me, today was the third time I encountered this 'system down' thing at Ambank.  Being a prompt paymaster, I had to drive over to another branch to settle my car loan.  Fine, I still got to pay my loan on time. Not today though.  After driving to another branch which is about 5 kms away, another 'SYSTEM DOWN' sign greeted me at the entrance of the bank. Worse still, an unfriendly security officer denied me entry into the bank.  When I insisted, he told me 'system down'. I persisted and said I wanted to make an enquiry. Still, he didn't barge. Firm as always, I said I want to make enquiry about my car loan. Having no choice, he allowed me in.  This is customer service? At the counter, the staff was pleasant enough to explain that there was a nationwide system breakdown for Ambank.  I proceeded to ask her how am I going to...

Help!! I want to do a scrap book but do not know how.  I've seen websites which teach us how to make our own scrap book but I find it hard to get myself to learn digital scrapping. Perhaps, age is really catching up for me to learn something new?? I still prefer the traditional way but yet I find them cumbersome.  If it's the traditional type, there will be a lot of cutting, pasting and also finding (among my clutter of stuff) for the right pictures and stuff which can relate to the stories I want to tell. I will post pictures of the scrap book I made umpteenth years ago.

I wish ...I know how to play the piano so that I can play it whenever I feel down. Who knows I may probably write a tune or two (stop dreaming! how many Beethoven are there?). ...I can ride a bicycle at least I can ride it with my husband or my son whenever we go for outing and not just wait and see by the side. ...I am a good chef so that I can cook a dish or two during pot luck for family gatherings' and not having to buy outside food ...I can sew so that I can mend a skirt or a blouse or even sew a zip for my kids' school pants without having to send to tailors ...I know how to write Chinese so that I am not handicapped when I pick up the Chinese newspaper or reading signages especially Chinese menus ...I can afford to have more kids so that I am not alone when I am old. I can have child No.1 visit me on Monday, child No. 2 visit me on Tuesday and so forth Actually I can just go on and on.  Aren't humans greedy and always ask for more?

This picture explains all.... Is this carelessness or plain ignorance? Would you be convinced that your child would be properly educated in English?  Whatever it is, a blatant error has been made and it will probably cost the centre its reputation.

Except the time when I didn't know that I had conceived, my 'best friend' was never this late. This was a record, it's 7 days late. So worried was I that I thought I suffered from premature menopause . What the? As I googled what premature menopause entails, something familiar strikes me.  A condition that I was diagnosed with by a well-known gynae in Gleneagles Hospital.  Let me get the facts right before I blog more about this condition of mine.  This happened many years back, could the gynae be wrong?

OMG! I've never had my period late for so many days.. it's late for 5 days... I had a slight feeling down there.. Very, very mild and it only happened intermittently for a few times in about two days.  If stress is the culprit, it must be due to the CNY preparation.  And possibly, my tutoring business.

Do I have what it takes to create the rainbow? I've just started reading a very interesting book titled 'Creating the Rainbow'.  I've taken the first step to realising this, I hope, I really hope.  Not just hoping, because I'm already into it.  I know the journey is not going to be free of bumps.  It's not going to free of obstruction.  I'm glad that I've made the decision to build my own rainbow.  Isn't it rare to see a rainbow? If we can, don't we want to build our own?

How 'hungry' are our national car salesmen? Doesn't seem to me that they are... I was the one who had to call him to follow up on status of my car loan application.  The reply was rather 'unurgent' which left me with the impression that he wasn't really trying hard to close the sales.  We are made to understand it's easy to close sale of our national pride.   

Do we want to be associated with trash? The answer could be positive if the people do not 'wake up' to throw their trash indiscriminately.  Since they are throwing rubbish, why can't they throw them in a dustbin? This situation is definitely going to attract pests such as flies, rats,crows, roaches or even stray cats and dogs.  And this is found in an area under MPAJ. Have we heard that MPAJ has demarcated certain area as 'Kawasan Bersih'?  So, if there is no such classification, does that mean it is justifiable to be filthy?