to help or not to help

of late, there have one too many features in the media about abduction, snatch theft - primarily against women. is our country becoming unsafe as society becomes more modern, urban and too pre-occupied in running the rat race?

it scares the hell out of me when it seems that it's no longer safe to do your groceries at the local supermarket or wherever it is we do our groceries. parking lots have become unsafe, someone just lurking in the corner waiting to pounce and harm an unwilling victim. and now that the daughter is driving to college on her own, i am endlessly worried and will only heave a sigh of relief when i get the message from her saying that she's home safe and sound.

what's worse, i recently read two articles of these crimes happening at the place where i work. so what has become of the human race? what is happening?

and in most instances, the victim says they shout for help but no one came to their rescue. sad much? yes, very much so. but when you stop to think about it, there have been horror stories about how one good samaritan stops to help only to be duped and robbed. like the saying goes "buat pun salah, tak buat pun salah". 


so what do we do really?  

Mission. Possible

Scenarios in the boss' office:

First, there is a letter to the President of a huge corporation but it's in Bahasa Malaysia. The boss wants me to translate it to English. I tell him my translation skills suck. He says "It's okay, I'll do it."

Then, I want him to sign my leave application form. He tells me "Why don't you take leave when I am traveling? These two days that you want to go on leave, I am still in the country." I tell him this "On the 20th, you will be in Penang, on the 23rd, you don't need to come to the office lah since I am not in..." He laughs and goes "Oh ok..."

See, that wasn't so hard....

etched forever...

Just over the weekend, the hubby & I met up with some friends for coffee. A friend brought his two year old tot. A handful she was, living proof that terrible two is not just a myth..

Then the hubby and I were talking about the tiny terror and I was saying that at that age, they have to be taught a lot of things. And I remarked on how our daughter was at that age.. the potty training, the disciplining, the diva attitude (her, not me). And he asked me "Who mean you can remember each one of it?". My reply to him a was simply "Of course."

It was not easy, trust you me but each milestone regardless of the tears (either laughing till I cried or simply out of frustration & sorrow), it will always be something I will remember. Always.

I made a huge decision by being a full time stay home mom when I had her. Years later (well seven to be exact), when she went to school only then I rejoined the work-force. Yes, and after years of not being at work - I had to start from the bottom again. Office what? Excel what? Power Point what? All the tech lingo sounded foreign to me. Thinking back, if I had not quit to be a mommy, what would I have achieved. Did I regret it? Yeah maybe once when I realized that my friends were already at the top of the corporate ladder and there I was trying to learn the ropes again.

But it soon got the better of me & I virtually gave myself a smack (you didn't think I would physically slap myself, did you? geez). I have been there for her every milestone - her first tooth (well that one the daddy felt it more than I did), her first word (not mama or dada sadly), her first and many tantrums, her first 'run' (nope, skipped the walking entirely) and so many more firsts... And I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Every precious moment of her growing up, I will remember till the day I take my last breath.

things i have learnt....

I’ve learned that...

..you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.

..no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back.

..it takes years to build up trust and only seconds to destroy it.

..no matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

..it’s not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts.

..you should never ruin an apology with an excuse.

..you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you’d better know something.

..you shouldn’t compare yourself to the best others can do.

..you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

..you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

..you can keep going long after you can’t.

..we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

..either you control your attitude or it controls you.

..regardless of how hot & steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades & there had better be something else to take its place.

..heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

..money is a lousy way of keeping score.

..my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.

..sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down will be the ones to help you get back up.

..true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.

..just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

..maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.

..it isn’t always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you are to learn to forgive yourself.

..no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn’t stop for your grief.

..our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

..a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.

..just because two people argue, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. And just because they don’t argue, it doesn’t mean they do.

..we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

..you shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.

..two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

..no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process.

..even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

..credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

..the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.

..it’s hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people’s feelings, and standing up for what you believe.

..people will forget what you said, and people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.

letting go

who knew it would be so difficult to come to terms with the loss of a loved one, more so when the loved one is a four-legged furry one. the family mourned the loss of our beloved cat last night, who we had been with us for thirteen years. he practically grew up with the daughter. she was four when we got him.

thirteen years of him irritating us (and vice versa), greeting us at the door when we got back from work or school, thirteen years of feeding him at the hint of a meow...

furball mika, we will miss you dearly....may you rest in peace

twenty three years on...

the sixth formers of '87/88 met up again two years later...this time we had the pleasure of the presence of our teachers & guest of honor was our principal, whom i would fondly refer to as mr. c...

didn't know what to expect.. would they remember us? would we remember them? well of all the teachers who came, only one taught my class. it was kinda embarrassing when all of us who were seated at one table who were from the same class (all the grand nine & one castaway of us) could not for the life of us remember what subject he taught us.. "sejarah melayu lah"... "no lah maths lah"... "we had sejarah melayu???" went round and round and round and yet we were none the wiser. so we said "you know what, why don't we just ask him?"...we did, and the horror!! he didn't remember teaching our class... ah well twenty three years on...must be the age factor... or that we weren't paying attention..all ten of us. surprisingly none of the smart asses from our class attended, i wonder why... i bet they would have remembered.

so anyways, moi was fashionably late. late. yes. fashionably. well i'd like to think so. ahaks!! i have no shame... and the evening started (really guys, you didn't have to wait for me you know). ahahahahahhaha... started off with the ice breaker..weird one that was. for a minute there i swore he was showing some pg13 or pg42 porn for the uninitiated... [note to self : when trying to avoid boring ice breaker sessions, use loo at the most bottom floor at the hotel on the other side of the street]. but all in all, it wasn't so bad. we survived. mr. c reminisced on how he ended up in the school and what he had to go through to turn the school around.

you know how they say time flies when you're having fun. well i must say, that two years in that school was the best time of my life -carefree, no worries in the world save for exams & it went by so fast that before you know it, twenty three years on it's a sense of deja vu when we seem them familiar faces, the familiar names. everyone spent the evening exchanging stories & having a good laugh.. it was a simple, yet beautiful event. we were just so comfortable with each other and it's like we never left school. all that was missing were us in uniforms, the infamous mr. c's canes and the pond that had us all curious on what was in it.

we are glad that we had the opportunity to show our gratitude to the educators who played a part in making us who we are - the persons we have become today, successful in our own right. we have only but a simple thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

so at the end of it all, it turned out great. lets not wait for the next twenty three years.