Thursday, July 7, 2011

[iPad MySuperKids] Cabaran #1. Group F - Kelahiran Seorang Peniaga Tanpa Modal -

Salam all..

Since my name appeared twice in the iPad contest organized by MommyLyna
I am sending another entry, this time for Group F.

As many of you may already know, I am financially incompetent. As a stay-at-home-mom (was, since I am currently employed, YAY! alhamdulillah) I tried so many things to help improve my family's financial standing.
I advertized as a translator and editor, a side-business which have been quite helpful in terms of providing me with extra cash. However, I needed to do more in order to provide my boys with a better life-style.

So, I joined Mommy Lyna's business as a reseller for Bling Buubies Nursing Kurung.

I kept up with the latest offer at the website and even posted pictures in my Facebook page.

So far, I have had quite a few inquiries but no buys.

No problem, I will not give up.
I will still promote this line of Nursing Kurung because I know one day I'll get a buyer.
And 2 and 3 and 4 and 5.........

Insya ALLAH..more business venture coming up soon. heheh


[iPad MySuperKids] Cabaran #1: Kelahiran @ Birth. Group C - Anis & Ahmad's LOVE Story-

Salam all...

Today is the last day for this contest and I still don't know what to write. *sigh*
I've visited some of the other contestants' entries and WOW! I am so blown away by them all.
As I am currently at the office and we're quite busy with 'office-duties', I can only come up with this entry.

The Birth of:
 - Anis and Ahmad's LOVE Story -

p/s: this entry is totally inspired by the Nora Elena TV series, aired on TV3, I know it's been long over but I have just only recently been hooked into watching it on Tonton.com heheh...

Nora Elena and her had-to-marry-him husband Seth Tan
As we have not finished watching this series, I can only recap the parts that I've watched.
Basically, the story could be based on coincidences (sounds familiar? heh) where Seth Tan did something horrible to Nora and he wanted to repent. She, on the other hand, was traumatized by the incident and had trouble trusting men but didn't know the culprit. Anyway, she did get engaged and was making wedding preparations when she bumped into Seth. Through horrible coincidences (again?!) and bad individuals making terrible accusations, her fiance broke off their engagement, causing Nora's mother to be hospitalized. Due to feeling guilty to Nora (whom he knew all along), Seth offered to marry her instead. She was forced by her mother to go through with the wedding and marry Seth. Which she did with a heavy heart since she still loved her fiance and this was followed by episodes where Seth Tan did everything he could to win her over.

So, having been inspired by this story (*soooo loving Seth Tan's lovey dovey approach!*)
I am going to tell how MY love story with my not-so-lovey-dovey-but-I-love-him-anyway Ahmad
was born! 


Me & Ahmad officially as husband and wife.
We too had started off due to coincidences.
Back when I was in my final year undergrad study, he SMSed me asking to be friends.
When I asked him how he got my number, he said a friend gave it to him.
I didn't know that friend then but he is now a part of us.

As days go by, we got closer and finally met on 7th June 2002.
(How was I able to remember this date till now? Coz I wrote it in my special SMS diary heh)
I have a SMS diary? Haha..inspired by my roommate who wrote down every SMS she ever received from her boyfriend.

I am consciously aware that I am no where near as beautiful as Nora Elena, not even in the same zipcode.
  On that historical day (to me at least <3) we only spent 2 hours together,
even then we didn't say anything much.
After Ahmad & I returned home from our date?/meeting? he SMSed me late that night.
During the long silence between the hours after our first meeting to the time he SMSed me,
I had already concluded that he had written me off after seeing how 'plump' I was (err..am).
I awkwardly replied his SMSes while trying to maintain my dignity as I have already decided that he was just being nice to me, for still contacting me even after seeing my size.

He finally caught on my nonchalant replies and asked me why.

Me: "Ingat kut diam dari td sbb dah tak nak kawan dgn adik sbb adik ni gemuk"
Ahmad: "Laa..manada..abg tidoq la td, letih drive lori"
Me: "Oh..ok"
Ahmad: "Awat? Abg tak pandang saiz la..abg kawan dgn adik sbb adik baik hehe"
 
There are more cute SMSes such as this one.

The best one yet came 4 month later where he wrote this:
1 4 3
sent to me at 4.53am almost 9 years ago.

Me, being so innocent and naive in the game of love
(believe it or not, Ahmad was my first boyfriend & I pray he will be my only husband till the day I die)
didn't know what the numbers meant. I asked him about it but he told me to find out on my own.
From my roommate, while we were getting ready to attend lectures that morning, I found out that it meant

I LOVE YOU

Imagine me smiling all day long that day. Haha.

You may not know it from just meeting him since he is so quite
but his SMSes were (were is the operative word here since he no longer write me SMS like these huhuhu)
so loving and tender that I am glad I wrote down ALL! the SMSes he ever sent me.

He may not be as romantic as Seth Tan.
But he is loving enough for me.


“Entry ini ditulis untuk cabaran #1 iPad MySuperKids yang direviu oleh Fazya Nisa' 


There you go ladies & gentlemen, my long narrative for this contest entry.
Hopefully my jury is the lovey-dovey type and like my entry, hehe.

Friday, July 1, 2011

The iPad 2 contest is baaaaackkkkk..!!!

Aiyooohhh...

Thanks to Kinna, my 'group-mate' in the above challenge for informing me and a few other group members. Looks like I need to write an entry about BIRTH. This word can be creatively (CREATIVE being the operative word here people!) interpreted by contestants and entries will be judged by a jury appointed to each group as well as by some other 'hidden juries'.

Hmmm..

Birth...

Birth...

Erm....


Can I get back to this later?

Writer's block dude..hehehe.. 

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Being a woman; mother and wife.

For full text, please go here
p/s: Notice how I've finally figured out how to 'print-screen' a page I like?  
Totally lame, I know but I'm a slow-learner heheh

First of all, I think I've made it known here that I hate TB.
Now that I've establish that, I have to inform you that TB's back, permanently, in my life again!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Last year when I wrote this, I really thought that TB would no longer be a thorn in my side,
at least not as pesky a thorn as she was 4 years back.
Back then, I didn't write down my #1 freedom.

Honestly, it's freedom from TB.

After our HUGE fall-out close to my due-date (preggy with Nazrin at the time), I kept
pestering Ahmad about moving out and renting a house for our family.
He did nothing about it even after his biological father stepped in and tried to convince him to
move us out of the current house we're living in; read: TB's house.
This parental intervention was also joined by my parents, who offered to pay for our rent
if he agrees to move out. As it is with Ahmad, he didn't say YES or NO.
He just maintained a stony silence with all parties involved in this drama.

To cut a long story short, while I stayed with my parents a month before giving birth to Nazrin & during confinement afterwards, TB told Ahmad that we can stay in that house because...

She's moving out!




That, ladies and gentlemen, was my FIRST FREEDOM for last year.
She moved to Taiping, staying with her other adopted son who is working there.
I was free of her presence for at least 5 days a week.  
She always come back on Mondays to attend a micro-financing meeting here.
I can manage the smaller percentage of her presence and could breathe a sigh of relief during her absence.

Unfortunately, as of yesterday, it has been confirmed that
TB IS MOVING BACK IN!!!!!!
Why? Because she wants to help with Shahrin and Nazrin.


ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH


This sad news was delivered to me by our neighbor, who is a good friend of TB's,
so she knows all the current gossip regarding TB.
I could have cried, right there and then but as we were standing there in front of TB's front door,
I saw her car coming into the driveway and I excused myself from the neighbor and went inside my room,
to scream into the pillow. 


So, what's the connection of all this hoolaabaloo with the link above?
Well, as I read this, I realized that each one of the points stated there are right.
I can relate with every point as I am now all of the persona stated above.
 I am mother and wife now.

I feel, experience, lived through and currently going through all the possibilities written in it.

But, if you read through No.6, I need you to know that I have been stupidly contemplating the D-word
even though I love Ahmad so much, it hurts.
Just because he wouldn't move out of that house.

At the peak of our fight regarding my hatred for TB (he knows how much I hate his mother) and his stubbornness about staying there, I did tell him that I would consider the D-word if this problem wasn't resolve quickly.
He stormed out of the house, didn't come back till around 2am and didn't speak to me for the whole week.
But he did finally allow me to go back home to my parents during my pregnancy with Nazrin.
A small reprieve but at least it got me out of that house and away from TB.

But how long do I have to suffer TB before I finally break?
How will I know that our love will still be strong, with this problem hanging over our heads?
Can I still stay with him when he wouldn't even consider moving out?

As for the last part, No.7, I am thankful for having tears to cry just because
I AM A WOMAN



Saturday, June 25, 2011

A summary of incidences..

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted something here.

Work is still at the trial-and-error phase though my office-mate cum partner-in-crime has been really understanding and great at showing me how to do things here. Even though we are almost 10 years different, age-wise, I think she is very much more mature than I am. She delegates wisely, stayed cool when we were swamped with completing tender proposals and always ready to answer my questions regarding our company.

The past weeks has been about learning my way through the intricate network of documents pertaining our company's service-business. I updated the list of outside workers (those working at the site) plus their current contracts and their updated salary. Other than that, I mostly assisted my office-mate with day-to-day workload.

Then, we were hit with tender proposals upon tender proposals. We've completed 10 tender applications (my first experience with completing tenders) just yesterday and our boss had just brought in 10 more tenders. *gasp* Each one as thick as a Webster dictionary, maybe even more. 2 of them are due by the end of the month while the other 8 are due by 15th next month. Each and everyone of them have calculations in them, meaning we're going to be bent over the pages with a calculator by our side.

As per my side-business, I've only got one project this whole month. A friend of a friend asked me to edit 5 pages of her MSc project proposal. Unfortunately for me, on the day I was supposed to e-mail her the completed documents, the internet connection at the office was suspended due to unpaid internet bills. Duuuhhh. So, I had to improvise. I saved the document into my thumb-drive and took it home with me.

Oh, and by the way, my broadband modem is currently MIA. !waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I don't know what happened to it. Ahmad said maybe someone stole it since the day I found out that my b/band modem was missing, he said 2 of his mother's friends came over with their children. Maybe one of the children took it home with them. I myself am thinking that it could be Nazrin who loves to play games on my lappy. So, maybe that day he pulled out the modem and played with it and left it somewhere. I've searched around the house but since Ahmad's bundles are all over the place, I might have missed it. We've reported it to Maxis and the person I spoke to on the phone informed me that my b/band account is currently suspended. During this time, I will not be charge with anything and it will last 3 month. If I ever find my modem back, I'll only have to pay RM20 to reconnect my account. However, I think I need to terminate this account and buy myself a new modem instead. No internet at home is not good for me because.....

In continuance with my previous story regarding my editing project, I had to go to the nearest cybercafe in order to email my customer's document to her. I always hated going to cybercafes. I hate their dark interior, the closeness (no privacy!) of each computers in it and the worst, the noisy gamers playing online games. Not forgetting the smell of ciggies and BO and sweaty teens. Most of the gamers in these cafes are school students wasting their allowance on hours of mindless games. So, getting back to my story, when I tried to send the document through email, Yahoo! flashed me a notice. My email was scanned and deemed harmful to the recipient due to the presence of Trojan virus in my document. SAY WHAT?????!!!!    

I've never had this problem before, so I panicked. I needed to send that document that day and my email was blocked?? So, I scanned my thumb-drive (while all the noise in that CC were making me progressively uncomfortable) and found Trojan infection all over my documents. DANG!!! The only option I had was to delete all the infected files but I can't do that because most of the files I kept in there are not backed-up. Stupid, I know but I never thought something like this could happen. *buhuhu*

The next day, with the internet connection in our office still blocked, I went to see a friend in USM, I went to the MSc room and asked to use her lappy there since they have LAN. The moment I clicked on my thumb-drive's icon, her lappy's scanner flashed red. Then, it completely blocked my thumb-drive. Nothing we did could open the files in it. I was getting really frustrated by this point so I went to see another friend there who is a computer-technician. I asked him to repair my thumb-drive the best that he can and he hasn't call be back yet. I'm still waiting for him to contact me regarding my 'sick' thumb-drive. I had to call my customer and told her the unfortunate events that had befallen me. Luckily, she's a very understanding person and wasn't mad at me for being late.

Thankfully, my boss paid the late internet bill and we now have access again (thus my updating my blog heheh). I think, the virus came from this computer I'm using and it has infected my thumb-drive. I'm saying this because when I attached the documents for my customer and emailed her from here, the email went through with no problems at all. Anyways, I'm just glad that I was finally able to send her the edited proposal and get my payment for it.

Well, I guess that's about it for now.
Have a nice day, folks.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Parenting lessons much?



The following are my response/answer to each scenarios based on my experience as a 'young' (LOL) mother.

1. I have not taught my boys to pick up rubbish outside of our home yet. So far, they've only been taught to throw rubbish in the bin and not to litter around the house or outside. My only problem is with Ahmad who just loves to leave bits of plastics/wrappers/ciggy butt/ash wherever he's been sitting. I've told my boys over and over about the virtue of not littering, however, I do believe their father needs a lesson or two too. In terms of picking up rubbish outside, I think I'm going to wait till Nazrin is a bit bigger/older before introducing him to that activity. Shahrin already knows not to litter but in time I'll teach him to pick up rubbish (whenever applicable/reasonable) when we're outside.

2. I haven't been as nice as Molly with my response. Depending on my mood or my stress level for that moment, I'd either try to decline nicely and give my reasons or would just flat out say NO!. Such incidence has only happened with Shahrin as he can already understand what I am currently doing and for what. The chores that Shahrin has offered to help are to put his formula into his bottle himself, to put the sugar &/or Milo into the cup, to sweep the floor and to make the bed. Understandably, his 'help' usually is not really helpful but I do appreciate them and thank him for doing so (whenever I'm in a good mood hehe). Nazrin has yet to offer his help around the house but you can expect him to create more work for me instead hehe.

3. Hmmm...I'll get back to this part when I have a daughter. *wink wink*

4. This behavior is what always gets to me, especially when Shahrin is the one not wanting to share. I've told him over and over about the virtue of sharing and would always point it out to him when a cartoon/children's show he's currently watching, features the good thing about sharing. He sometimes would share with Nazrin but usually it's a fight fest with those 2. What I've done so far, again depending on my stress level, has been to tell him to share with his brother. I'd do this about 2 or 3 times while they keep fighting over whatever it is they are fighting over. Then, if things start to get out of hand, I'd offer Nazrin something else to play with. Sometimes it works but most of the time, Shahrin would want that one instead and I have to convince Nazrin to play with the previous toy/stuff they were fighting over. There have been times things got so out of hand, I had to remove Nazrin from the play area altogether. I'd distract him by pointing out things I see outside; i.e. chicken, birds, squirrels. Usually, it works and we'd have such fun that Shahrin would join us. From my experience, these situations usually require a 'touch and go' kind of approach. If one tactic doesn't work, then I'd use another one and another and another. Can't wait till they both outgrow this phase. *sigh*

Unfortunately, I do believe that I am not a good mother at all. My reactions have always been driven by my stress/mood level and not much thinking. However, I do make it a point to talk to Shahrin (Nazrin is currently still to little to be reasoned with :D) about his behavior and why I have to scold him for doing something. Sometimes he understands and most of the time, it's 'in one ear and out the other' but we'd always cuddle up afterwards.

Hopefully my parenting methods wouldn't do too much damage to my boys. Gulp.   

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Working vs Staying at home..

Personally, if Ahmad is a working man and we are financially stable, I would prefer staying at home.

I love being with my boys.
I miss playing with them.
I miss watching TV while nursing Nazrin.
I miss Shahrin's incessant talking.
I miss my boys.

BUT

TB's home.

So, what's a girl to do but come to work to avoid any more confrontations?

Plus, end of this month I'll be getting my own, hard-earned MONEY!

Syukur, alhamdulillah...............