Sunday, March 27, 2011

Letih...

I just had a 7-day working week... and urghhhh... I am so bloody tired... and next week is also a 7-day working week... followed immediately with a 2-day outstation to Trengganu...

I'm not a workaholic, but somehow my work requires me to ACT like one...

Aduh... aduh... duh duh duh duh duh duh... tiba2 terkeluar pulak lagu ni...

Berkorban apa saja... 
demi untuk yang kucinta...
siksa dan derita...
telah kuterima...
tapi aku tak bahagia...
Aduh aduh duh duh duh duh duh duh...
Ahai.... ahai....

One word to describe what/how I feel right now... yup... u guessed it... TIRED @ LETIH...

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Are you proud to be a Malaysian now?

People in Africa are fighting for food, medicine and clean water for everyday use, people in middle east are fighting to change their corrupted and undemocratic government, the Libyans are facing death everyday due to attacks by the US troops, the Japanese are still in shock and mourning for their losses after the earth quake and tsunami.. and what are we in Malaysia doing now? Fighting over a scandalous sex video... Adoi... I almost feel ashamed of being a Malaysian right now...

I'm no supporter of any political party... mainly because I am an academician... and academicians are not supposed to talk politics... academicians are just supposed to be propagators of facts and figures and of course with intellectual analysis and synthesis...

But the current political scenario in the country now is just so sordid... so extremely nauseating... that I just feel compelled to write a piece on it... :)

The 8 o'clock news should be now rated 18SX... I am actually embarrassed to watch the news now when the kids are around... my little Nabil actually asked me "Mummy, what is a pelacur?"... how do I answer that... I actually encourage the kids to switch to other channels at 8 o'clock... kalau dulu, dari dlm bilik I dah jerit "Kan ni pukul 8, masa mummy tengok news lah... please switch the channel to TV3"... But now "Nabil nak tengok cerita apa, Nabil tukarlah, tak ape..." Budak tu pun dah confused and asked back "Mummy tak nak tengok news?"


Come to think of it...even an idiot would know... all those politicians from the ruling party tu semua bersih sangat ke? Yes or No DSAI did it, Yes or No he is the man in the video is actually a second issue... what people see... sensible people lah, staunched UMNO supporters would never see this... what people see is the peculiarity in the way the video issue is handled... it is so darn obvious that there is a conspiracy behind it... and the conspirators are so shallow and not so smart (I dont want to say stupid hehe...) that they fail to see the likely repercussion of the issue...

Just before I started writing this entry, I went to the Economist website (which I often do, being an economist myself)... adoi... I'm so shock to find that there is a piece on this issue there...  adoi... malunya... really, right now rasa malunya mengaku diri ni Malaysian di mata dunia...

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The busiest 4 days ever... (17 - 20th March 2011)

Banyaknya aku buat benda dalam those span of 4 days... when I look back, macam unbelievable je... 

Those 4 busy days started with a short trip to Melaka and Muar (17 and 18 March 2011)

I had to attend 2 meetings, one on Thursday (17/3) at Pejabat Ketua Menteri Melaka, Menara MITC and the other on Friday (18/3) at TNB Melaka. Since the two dates coincided with school holiday week I thought the kids would be delighted to tag along as they usually did whenever I had to go outstation. But to my surprise the 3 bigger ones said "no, mummy I have my own plans for the holiday", almost in chorus...

Hm... I guess the kids are feeling that they are getting too old to still tag along with mummy whenever mummy goes outstation. Only the two small ones, Aqim and Nabil, who are actually not so small anymore, are still excited to come along whenever mummy steps out of the house...

Sedih jugak, bawa kereta besar, tapi 2 org anak je ikut... but what to do, I have to come at peace with my own feelings... I have to accept the fact that the kids will soon fly the coop and leave me in my empty nest... hwaaaaa... I'm so not looking forward to that...

I only booked a hotel on Tuesday... and didnt really expect that almost all the hotels were fully booked, in fact all the hotels that I called (Philea, Radisson, Equatorial, and a few others) were fully booked. So, when I called this particular not so grand hotel, I quickly reserved a room... adoi... nama je "Grand", tapi tak grand langsung... as the engineer at the MITC (the engineer that I had the meeting with) said, "Hotel tu memang teruk, I rasa dia dah ujud dari zaman Hang Tuah lagi kot..."... Nampak macam serious, tapi pandai pulak buat lawak engineer tu....


Actually I wanted so much to try the new hotel at Ayer Keroh... Philea Resort... tak pe lah, may be next time.

So, the room at Grand Continental was not that bad, we got a room with one single and 1 queen beds, ok lah for the 4 of us... tapi yg tak tahannya... hotel tu bau macam basement, hapak semacam...

But to Aqim and Nabil, the smell, the food, the room size, even the bed dont matter, as long as the hotel has a swimming pool... In fact, while I was checking in at the counter, Aqim asked the receptionist "Where's the swimming pool? Tak nampak pun...". The pool was actually on the roof...

Masuk je bilik, they immediately changed into their swimming attire and ran to the lift again to go up to the roof.. macam anak itik budak dua org ni terjun masuk kolam tu... splash!!!




After my meeting (around 4pm) we went to Taman Buaya (Melaka Crocodile Farm)... the place looked so dull and gloomy, it wasnt as lively and fun as it used to be... I think the last time I went there was more than 15 years ago when Muaz was still 2 or 3 years old. There used to be a bridge, where we could stand on it and watch the crocodiles right below us. The care taker said that the owner of the farm was worried that a child might fall off the bridge and become the crocodiles' free meal and if that happened, the farm would sure be forced to close down by the authority...




There are now miniature replicas of Malaysia's famous buildings and landmarks in the middle of the Taman Buaya... KLCC, KL Tower, Tugu Negara, Penang Bridge, PM Office, Masjid Negara, A Famosa and a few others...







It was quite boring actually, the 2 boys were actually whining... "Mummy, boringnya... let's go somewhere else..." I had to literally force them to stand or sit near the replicas for me to take their photos (even though there was a sign "do not enter" into the fenced area of the replicas)...

We went to board one of the Melaka River Cruise boats after that... and that was fun... we enjoyed the 45 minutes boat ride...




Last thing we did that evening, before we went for dinner, was went on the Revolving Tower of Taming Sari... the ride took only 10 minutes and the ticket price was the same as the ticket for the Melaka River Crusie boat ride (RM10 for adult and RM5 for kids) and it was worth it...




The next day, we checked out early before I went to my meeting at TNB Jalan Banda Kaba at 10 am. After the meeting, we went back to Muar... at first MJ planned to take the state road, but after Semabok, he decided to go through the highway instead... the weather was just too hot for a drive...

We stopped at Semabok (before continuing our way to the PLUS highway) for an early lunch at this restaurant...


The food was delicious... we had asam pedas, masak cili padi pucuk ubi, sambal sotong and pecal... aduuuh sedapnya... betul2 rasa home made, I really recommend this place to anybody who like lauk masakan kampung...



MJ and the owner of the restaurant... he looked so simple, and his restaurant pun nampak biasa je... but MJ said Haji Isenin is actually a millonaire...

I saw this newspaper cutting displayed at the back of the restaurant... MJ told me that Haji Isenin is the father inlaw of the owner of "Fadhilat Herba" who died together with his wife (Haji Isenin's daughter) and 4 children in a car crash 2 years ago... The accident made headlines in newspapers and TV... Haji Isenin claimed that he loaned RM1 million to his late son in law as capital for his company (Fadhilat Herba)...

We left Semabok at around 12pm and reached Pagoh Muar about an hour later...



Later that afternoon, we went to MJ's dusun durian, about 11 km off bound... the journey was really menyeramkan... but the view was breathtaking... but no photo sebab terlampau takut... lalu tepi tebing curam, masuk lumpur, celah pokok kelapa sawit... ada bekas tapak kaki binatang, entah2 harimau...err...

I didnt count how many durian trees were there, tapi memang banyak, and all of them were bearing flowers... in about 2-3 months insyaallah the trees will bear delicious fruits... yummy... cant wait...



I went back to Shah Alam with Nabil and Aqim petang tu jugak... because the 2 boys did not want to miss Raja Lawak Final... and I had my monthly breakfast meet with my breakfast buddies the next day...

My breakfst buddies... from left... Dr Aliza, Shima and Sab... we have been friends since the early 90s...

Later that day, I received a call from MJ that his friend, whom I also knew, passed away in Pattani Thailand. Arwah was once married to MJ's foster parents' daughter. So, that Saturday night, we went to Bangi (where arwah's house was) and stayed until about 1am... by the time we left, jenazah has not yet arrived... We decided to go back and MJ went back there after subuh. I decided not to go with MJ because I Amin, my second son, was going back to his hostel that Sunday.. and I needed to do some shopping for his needs as well as for the other kid's needs as the next Monday schools will be reopened after one week holiday.

That Sunday morning, I went to do grocery shopping alone, and cooked lunch after that.. after lunch, I took Amin shopping, and at around 5pm went to send him back to his hostel...

All those activities in four days... macam tak percaya je.... :)

Monday, March 14, 2011

suka menyibuk - baik mati...

1. Rajin bercakap, rajin bekerja - Bagus Sekali
2. Rajin bekerja, malas bercakap - Kena Buli
3. Malas kerja, rajin bercakap - Wayang Cina
4. Malas bekerja, malas bercakap - Tak Guna
5. Malas bekerja, suka mengadu - Nyanyuk
6. Malas bekerja, selalu ponteng - Baik Berhenti
7. Malas bekerja, suka menyibuk - Baik Mati

- Kata-kata Profesor UNGKU AZIZ

I particularly like no. 7... memang ramai dlm dunia ni dlm kategori tu... terutamanya ada satu kerabat tu yg suka sangat nak tahu apa aku buat apa aku fikir... lepas tu dia sakit hati lalu meracun dan mengungkit...betul2 bangsa tak ada keje selain MENYIBUK...

Aku tak doakan dia org mati, sebab mak aku dulu ajar, walau macam mana jahat pun seseorang tu, jangan sesekali kita doakan dia mati... yang cakap "MALAS BEKERJA, SUKA MENYIBUK - BAIK MATI" tu Professor Ungku Aziz, bukan aku...

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Early anniversary present...

I received an early anniversary present from MJ... I asked why so early? Our anniversary is not until 15 June... He said this is a one year anniversary of him "winning me back"... Ha? Oh ok... tak pe, the anniversary of him winning is the anniversary of them losing... hahaha... Apa2 lah... The gift? Blackberry Bold 3... :)

Dah orang bagi... ambik je lah... orang tua2 kata, rezeki jangan ditolak, maut jangan dicari... and orang berbudi kita berbahasa, orang memberi kita merasa... nama I nak beli sendiri, tak kuasa... :)

So, thanks MJ...


Friday, March 11, 2011

mentimun dan durian...

I came up with this new peribahasa today by myself... I swear...

Apa kan daya...
kita mentimun, mereka durian...
tapi kalau durian dah jadi tempoyak, cicah dengan mentimun...
dua-dua habis kena makan jugak...

Moral of the story... tak payah nak berlagak... tak payah nak berjalan mendongak ke langit... sebab sesungguhnya dunia ini sentiasa berputar... hari ni kita makan orang, esok mungkin kita kena makan...

Gloomy Friday...

Suramnya hari ni... mengantuk dibuatnya... uwaaaaaaaa......


Kalau boleh tido kan best...



Aduyai....

Thursday, March 10, 2011

RESPECT can only be EARNED...

Some managers are so unreasonably bossy... and they demand "respect" from their subordinate by threatening them... not only that they also like to use the big bosses' names as their shields...

Teringat pulak masa kecik2 dulu... "ha! ha! tak tau! kita nak cakap dgn mak kita... nanti mak kita pukul awak...".... hahahhahaha...

Hai.... entahlah...  Kalau dah takut org tak respect kalau guna nama sendiri... kenalah ubah perangai supaya orang boleh respect you because of you, not because org takutkan boss besar... After all...

RESPECT can only be EARNED... it CANNOT be FORCED or IMPOSED...


Dont steal, lie or cheat...

Dont steal, lie or cheat...

But if you must steal, steal away my sadness...

If you have to lie, lie besides me every night for the rest of my life...

And if you need to cheat, please cheat death...

(source: unknown)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

So predictable...

As expected... dia telah menghebohkan apa yang terjadi (her version of course...) ke seluruh 4 penjuru alam... org tak tahu pun jadi tahu... sehingga org tak ingin tahu pun jadi ingin tahu...

Someone whose office is located at the end of the building ran into me this morning... and asked what really happened, because she said what she heard was so unlike me...

Haha!! My answer was... you gunalah your own judgement to make your conclusion.. I'm not going to say anything...

I'm taking this stand now...

Ilham dari pujangga
BERDIAM DIRI BUKAN ERTINYA KAU KALAH
Biar cercaan sekali datang menimpa 
sudahlah memang adat di dunia
Bersuaralah kamu pada perkara berguna
Itulah sifat orang bijaksana...


Monday, March 7, 2011

hahaha - kelakar gila...

"Anak abg tu pandai, dapat semua A STPM dia..."

Me: Ok, eloklah. Berapa A?

"8A..."

Me: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... nak tipu pun agak2 lah....

Aduh sakit perut aku ketawa...

Friday, March 4, 2011

I'm too old to be bullied...

My mind is working over time again tonight... I know this is not good for my bp... but somehow I dont have enough control on this... I really get worked up over what happened this week...

Was I too soft? What made them step over my head? Is it because I always gave in to them? Or is it because I never answered them back? (sebab kecik2 mak dah ajar, "jangan menjwab"... hehe)

My mind went through the meeting on Tuesday evening over and over again... thinking what I should have said... what should hv been my answer or my reaction...

My memory went back to so many occasions where I helped save her butt... and how many times she humiliated me in front of other people... Why did I ever let her do that...

I also cant stop thinking the statement that she always said to me "Ani, aku kagum dengan kau... macam mana kau boleh buat bodoh je..." And I always said to her... "ala... tu small matter je... aku tak luak pun..."

I think she has said that statement to me so many times she is beginning to believe what she said.. that I am really stupid... Actually I would really like to say to her face that she is the one with the SPM gred 3 mentality... who thinks quantity is better than quality.... who thinks that auditors would be impressed with decorative tagging rather the contents of the file...

Oh God... I have lost count on how many times I have let her get away with her defamation remarks to me... Actually I know why... I didnt want to stoop to her level (of SPM gred 3) to argue on things which I considered as small matter or petty because I believe when tiime comes the evidence or the output will speak for itself...

But was I wrong... I dont know what mandram she used because she has managed to make the big boss with a PhD to bow to her command... she has succeeded to make the big boss look at the picture from her SPM gred 3 angle...

Ok, let me start from the beginning... we (me and her) are heads of parallel departments. And both our departments were audited (well, mine is still as I have more projects than her, while hers finished yesterday) this week. The audit exercise of 2 of my programs and 2 of her programs finished yesterday afternoon and the auditors gave two thumbs up to my programs - my programs complied to all special conditions (syarat khusus) with additional 2 recommendations for improvement (cadangan penambahbaikan). All in all the auditors said that they will write a favourable review about my programs.

Unfortunately, her programs was badly reviewed. The auditors claimed that they failed to find the evidences that are crucial to her programs.

As soon as the exit meeting was over, the CEO called for a post mortem... and all of the sudden, the post mortem was all about the badly reviewed programs, the meeting was all about finding who should be the black goat (kambing hitam) to put at the stake...my immediate boss suddenly brought out issues that the CEO conclusively accepted as the reasons for the failure of the other 2 programs. And the reason was ME...

I was blamed to be not cooperative with her in preparing the documentations and the evidences... hello... we were both put to be audited on the same dates... I had my own set of documentations and evidences to collect, accumulate, filed, labeled...

Actually, they were evidences that were common to our programs but she insisted on preparing those evidences themselves... and her mistake was that she was not looking into the content, all the time she was verbally abusively harassing people of my department on the tagging of the files. She was more concern over the decorative tagging rather than the contents of the file. I did try to offer my 2 cents worth of opinion to her and what she did was she got up, bang a file on her table and stormed out...

And somehow... when her programs were badly reviewed, she put the blame on me... everyone in the exit meeting (including the CEO and our immediate boss) heard the comment was not at all about the unstandadized tagging or the uneven size and colour of the front cover of the files.. in fact there was no mention on whether the auditors were impressed with the decorative file tagging (hahahaI just have to laugh here... because it was really silly)...

Anyway... the main comments were on insufficient evidences... insufficient activities conducted... the lack of knowledge of the people in her own department about their own programs...

Actually the evidences for our programs are of the same nature, except that her evidences should be related to her programs and mine related to my programs. So, when I commented that I had all those evidences, she made a comment that "kenapa tak buat copies of the evidences for me too?" OMG... I think that statement was too much...I mean, who am I to her? her secretary? her maid? And what was worse, the bosses agreed with her... hello.... what just happened? semua org dah dibodohkan ke?

It was very sad to me when the immediate boss and the CEO seemed to side with her...

Even sadder, when I tried to defend myself and my team, the CEO shut me up... she said "I dont want to hear any more explanations from you... " imagine that... in front of about 25 staffs from many supporting departments...

And even more pathetic than that, the success of the audit of my programs was not mentioned at all in the post mortem. No "good job Ani, keep up the good work"... or "congratulations to you and your team Ani"... Nope... none whatsoever...

All the other staff from the other departments (HR, maintenance, resource center, etc) looked at me with pitiful eyes... in fact as soon as the meeting was over, some of them did come to me and said "sabar la kak... kami faham apa akak rasa"...

Once I was back in my room I just could not contain my composure any more... I cried like a little girl whose barbie doll house just got destroyed by her stepmother... my staff tried to console me... but I just could not take it... suddenly my immediate boss came in and added salt to my wound... she continued her lecture by saying that I should thank my lucky star because my programs received good review because she helped me a lot... I was "Ha?!?"...

I thought and thought hard... why? even people of the CEO's office were flabbergasted by the conclusion that their boss made...

Needless to say, the reason why my mind refuses to allow me to catch some zzzz is because it wants me to think of what to say to those "straw women" the next time I see them... many dialogues come and go in my mind on what I would say the next time she asks help from me (she often did that especially in preparing reports)... or the next time she asks me to go out to lunch.. because I know her well enough that after this, she will just carry on like nothing happened... selalunya macam tu lah,,,, and I would just go along with her... That's why she made the statement "You boleh je buat bodoh ya Ani..."

Well, not this time bum... not anymore... in fact the next time i see her i'm going to ask her to think hard on who is the stupid one... budak gred 3 SPM yg keje operator telefon lepas SPM lepas tu belajar luar kampus ke... or budak gred 1 yg terus pegi US for 6 years after SPM...

Lesson to learn here... no matter how high you study (in her case sampai Master) tapi kalau tahap mentalnya tahap SPM gred 3, maka itu lah level of thinking nya sampai bila2...

I'm going to hold my head high this time and not let her ever say that statement to my face again... the statement of "u boleh je buat bodoh ya Ani..." I owe this to myself... Eh, dah macam movie "I'm not stupid" pulak.... hahaha...

Seriously, I'm just too old to be bullied... pelik betul... tak malu langsung perempuan tu... u dah failed dah lah... try to improve next time... what did she hope to accomplish by doing what she did? would it change the auditors' report? betul2 mentality SPM gred 3...

Ok lah... dah start nak ngantuk dah ni... good night people... thanks for reading the thoughts that crossed my mind tonight... :)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Munafiq who we thought was our friend...

What do u call a person when found to have done something wrong, as a result pinned the blame on someone else?

If u asked me... I would call that person a MUNAFIQ...

I really learn a valuable lesson this week...

An extremely valuable lesson that if ever I forget it, I swear I would never forgive myself...

I'm too hurt to even write about it now... someday when at least I am partially healed, I will write all about it. Oh no... it's not about MJ... nothing to do with him... this is about work...