My Diary Today

Today's a fun day but a darn tiring one, too. Here's what I did:

6:00 AM: I woke up
6:30 AM: I drove up to Cyberjaya campus to checkout the classrooms where I'll be teaching next semester. My 15-year-old car was chugging away as I watched other big bullies zipping past me. Never mind; as long as I'm safe.
7:30 AM: Stopped by the Seremban R & R to pee :-) I took the Sepang-KLIA exit instead of the Nilai exit which is a few miles shorter. That extra distance cost me RM17.50 - never mind, at least I'm not lost.
8:30 AM: Arrived near campus. My colleagues were still on their way up from Melaka campus. Had "roti canai telor" and a "teh tarik" as I waited.
9:00 AM: Arrived at the campus - waited. Oops... bumped into my Director and her Deputy. Found out that I'm gonna get a temporary office there.
9:45 AM: Colleagues arrived, and we chatted at the cafe upstairs. A former colleague came by, and continued chatting till we forgot what we were there for!
10:30 AM: Campus tour. We walked from one building to another, getting acquainted to the classrooms. It was a real good exercise... in the searing heat. Natural sauna.
12:45 PM: Lunch at SABA, a Middle-Eastern restaurant. Patrons were already waiting before it opened! We all ate "khabsah" (fragrant rice with meat and salad).- sorry didn't think of taking photo of it.
1:45 PM: Left for Melaka. One of my colleagues came back with me. I was god-damn blurr throughout the journey. I guess I was exhausted after all the driving and walking. Fortunately my passenger talked to me.
3:00 PM: Arrived in Melaka campus and went up to my office to do work.
3:30 PM: Someone had a birthday celebration, so I joined and chatted with other colleagues.
4:30 PM: Came home after packing my dinner.

At night, I did laundry and then I ironed two pieces of my office wear. So, that's my diary today.

For a Friend

A friend of mine, who has been giving me strong emotional support from the day I was divorced till today, is now at a point of depression when she discovered today that her son has been diagnosed with Influenza A. Further tests had been done for possible H1N1 infection, but results will only be known in about 24 hours.

I don't know what I could do to help alleviate her distress now as she awaits the results, but I do know that I've to reciprocate the kindness and care that she has shown to me for almost half a year. She's the most wonderful friend to have, and I will have her and her son in my prayers so that she will gain strength to go through each day, and that her son would recover from this illness.

Although she has her husband to care for her, she needs all the emotional support that she could get right now... from all of us who know her.

Culinary Fun

When I was a teen, I used to watch my mom and my late grandma - I called her "Mak" - cook. Occasionally, I'd boil rice for the family using an electric rice cooker. Being the eldest in the family, I've just got to learn those little things, I suppose. Little did I know that these little things were vital later when I started work.

When I was posted to the rural school in Sarawak, it was the first time ever that I had to cook on my own. No mama, and certain no Mak to guide me as to what ingredients to put into the wok. I still remember having to use a kerosene stove to cook my first plate of rice. There was no electriciy in the village. The rice turned out half-cooked as I was unable to gauge the amount of water to use - hey, it's not an electric rice cooker, ok? And the rice was somewhat different. Nevertheless, I still ate the rice with a can of sardines. I survived. No stomach ache :)

Later, I learnt to fry vegetables using edible ferns which the locals call miding. I got more creative and fried them with sambal ikan bilis, and an egg. It wasn't long when I became an expert in cooking rice using the kerosene stove. I got so good at it that I could just leave the pot on the stove, go to class, then walk back to the house just in time to see the rice being almost cooked.

When I got married, I went much further. With the help of my ex-wife, I picked up recipes for nasi beriyani and chicken stew. I also got more creative by adding a concoction of sauces in the dishes that I cooked. Of course, I never inherited the culinary peranakan skills that Mak had, though. Still, for a man, the skills that I have is sufficient to please my FORMER parents-in-law. They tasted the nasi beriyani, and they liked it. Well, they can now have nasi beriyani at a mamak stall or an Indian restaurant if they want.  Bad me... hehehe.

The nasi briyani (taken from my other blog)

My chicken stew (also taken from my other blog)

Anyway, now that I'm all alone again, I've stopped cooking. It is more practical to pack food from the economy rice stall nearby immediately after work. Sometimes, it's cheaper that way. I spend an average of RM3.20 for three dishes per dinner, while on weekends, I'll stay at my parents' place to have home-cooked meals. If I'm just too tired or lazy to buy food, I'll cook instant noodles with eggs and vegetables. On some days, if I'm tired of Chinese dishes, I'd opt for "nasi kandar" from a nearby Indian-Muslim (mamak) 24-hour eatery. It costs about RM7.50 for meat and two types of vegetables like the one below which was  taken out of the microwave oven.

 This is what I eat sometimes - nasi kandar

Have to get used to being single once more. Psst...here's a secret. I don't know how to buy the ingredients but I could somehow visualise the taste, though not 100% accurate :-)

Simply Write

"You can write well." - that's what a couple of friends have told me about my blogs. Yeah, I've more than one blog. The truth is, I just enjoy writing... e-mails, blog posts, articles to the Editor, poems. I don't get paid, but it doesn't matter because I love doing it.

Lately, I've been looking for ways to get money just by writing so that I could earn some pocket money. A prolific online writer showed my blog to a magazine which she has been writing for, but the publisher didn't like my style. My style is, anything goes. It's mostly informal, and I use real simple English language because I don't know how to put spice into words... not yet.

Writing is an honest living. Who knows, one day, I might just be a freelance writer - perhaps after I retire, or earlier. So, if there's anyone out there who want me to write something for a fee, let me know :-)

A Hobby Rejuvenated

When I was younger, I liked taking snapshots. I got my first camera when I was 6 years old ; I believe it was a toy camera that looked real. When I went to teacher's training college, I got my own camera, but it was stolen by an idiot - also a trainee teacher. I never got it back. Then came the digital camera era. I had a hand on a Sony 10 Megapixel compact camera, but I didn't like it because it was too slow and didn't allow much room for creativity. It wasn't mine, anyway.

For me, I'd rather go for scenery and buildings. Unless someone asks me to shoot a portrait, I won't do that. I'll not take a photo with me in it because I'm not photogenic.

Only recently I decided once and for all to invest in a digital SLR (DSLR) camera. I'm still learning about it, and about taking great pictures. I managed to take a few just before dinner at Holiday Inn two days ago. Well, I didn't have to foot the bill for the meal; my aunt volunteered to pay for the four of us. So, while waiting for the food, I rushed out to catch these scenes:

Sunset just outside the hotel.
The Eye of Malaysia is on the right - not in service anymore.

This scene was taken from the right of where I stood

The Melaka Jetty. You could walk right to the end.

It was an interesting evening with my Canon 1000D. Nah, I'm not gonna be a professional photographer. I'm doing this just for fun... for now, at least. People say that photography is an expensive hobby. Yeah only the equipment is, but you don't have to buy the entire range of lenses. I'd probably invest in just one more zoom lens, if I've the cash one day so that I could take snapshots of distant objects. The one that I have now is an 18-55 mm.

Watching Robin Hood

I was doing some work in my office yesterday evening when a colleague opened my door without warning: "Hey, wanna watch a movie?" - well, I had actually promised another colleague that I'd be dating her to dinner. Anyway since she's also joining for the movie, what the heck. I said YES... two's a company (minus me).

I like watching movies with someone (at least one), and I generally go for sci-fi and comedy ones. A bit of romance is fine - tell me which movie doesn't include some kissing scenes in it? :-)

When was the last time I went to the cinema to watch a good movie? Last year, with my ex-wife. How pathetic! But I'm truly grateful for having these two friends who don't mind having an almost grey-haired man watching Robin Hood with them. One of them is single, while the other is single-on-weekdays only :-) You go figure out who is which.

At 4:58 p.m., I got a text message asking me to get the tickets for the 5:15 p.m. show. Arrgh! Why me. OK, don't complain... I had to get a parking space, then walk across the road to Melaka Mall, then take the escalator up, then walk to the other end to reach the MBO Cineplex. I got the tickets, and good seats too as there were only a few patrons.

The movie was quite alright but you sometimes need to make sense of what Robin Longstride a.k.a. Robin Hood (played by Russel Crowe)  is saying because he appears to murmur - thank god for the subtitles. Well, I'm not gonna do a review of this movie but I'd just like to say that I love the battle scene and there are some breathtaking views in the movie, too. Go watch it for a bit of excitement, humour and romance.

My Precious Job

Solve this riddle: "It was once highly sought after, now it's almost bottom on anyone's list." - so, what's my job? If your answer is "a teacher", then you're absolutely right!! Too bad, there's no prize for making a correct guess.

I joined the education sector in 1990, and my first posting was to a rural school in Sarawak, in a small village called Nyelitak. I wonder if that village still exists. The school definitely isn't there anymore due to under enrolment - there were only forty students when I was there. It was a wonderful experience, though scary initially. I didn't know anyone, yet I had to mingle among the natives; I found that they were really good people. I came back to Malaysia (civilisation!!!) 3 years later, and had to re-adjust my brain to suit the "new" environment.

Sekolah Rendah Kerajaan Nyelitak, Simunjan (background: school building, foreground: canteen)

I continued teaching till 2000, and then I decided it's time to move on. Never mind that I'd lost all the benefits of being a government servant; I wanted something new. So I left Malacca and teaching, and joined a private firm in Petaling Jaya as an Educational Consultant. Wow... really great - a consultant, huh? Actually, I was more like a Training Executive for the company's educational software sold to schools. I met a couple of new friends there, two of whom I'm still in touch with. I wonder what happened to my really cool boss. Anyway, I didn't last long there as I'm never a city kid, so I seized the opportunity to return to Malacca when there was a vacancy at a newly established college here. I joined late 2001 as its pioneer language instructor.

Things went smoothly, I got to know more friends. Then there was hanky-panky in the management and heavy internal politics that had affected the staff. Finally, after securing a new job, I left that college early 2005 and joined a private university. The pay was much lower, but who cares. I knew I made a good move. Here's where I met my wife who dumped me 3 years later. The colleague who introduced her to me has now gone into hiding. Gosh, she must have thought I'm the bad one. My ex-wife's good; I'm bad... as always, men get the blame.

I've learnt a lot in this university. I've got great, helpful colleagues, and a personal office (with a room mate), so there's kinda privacy. There are lots of stringent policies to adhere to, but never mind - it's a small matter. I'm happy here but like many other private sector employees, there will come a time when I've to leave this place with sweet memories.

In my humble office

Yup, there's no pension for me when I'm 55 years old, which means I've to keep working till I can't breathe anymore or till my future wife (if I'm lucky enough to get one) tells me: "Hey, old man. Enough of working la." :-)

That's life at work for the time being.