Common Area Manners!

At home, since young we were taught to ensure that the living hall is tidy, beds made, bathrooms cleaned, trash taken out daily, floor swept & mopped, shirts washed & ironed and self hygiene brush teeth, bath, etc ......

At the hostel as students .... everyone's too caught out with assignments & exams that the floor is dusty, trash only taken out when it's falling out, clothes washed only when you have none clean ones left, bathrooms no stench but lined with moss .... and so on.

At work, we try to keep our desk as tidy as possible. The pantry, we try to be careful not to spill anything but not too concerned because there will always be someone else who will clean up the mess.

Regarding restroom manners .... if it's the one within your office space then it's fine. But when it's in a common restrooms shared with other people you don't know .... well let's say you'll find it smelly, floors wet, body waste unflushed, filthy paper towels found not it the waste-bin but around it.

We would keep our own place clean but not bothered about public areas. Why can't people be more considerate? What has our society developed to ... or didn't at all?

WAKE UP!! MUMMIES & DADDIES?

Q1 : How many hours do you spend during weekdays
a. At work : _____
b. With your kids : _____

Q2 : How many years would you dedicate your life to
a. Work : _____
b. Your kids : _____

Q3 : Who’s needs more nurturing & your attention?
a. Your new staff at work
b. Your kids

Q4 : Who’s going to really take care / provide for you when you’re sick or a senior citizen
a. The companies you have dedicated your time, life & sweat
b. Your kids

IF YOUR KIDS ARE MORE IMPORTANT …. Ask yourselves :-

1. Why do you spend more hours at work than the required (as in your appointment letter) almost everyday?
   
2. It’s all about the money, right? Because you want to give them the best there is. Take a step back now, are these all really necessary? Are you spoiling them a little too much?
   
3. So, leaving your kids with the nannies or maid, so that you need not worry about working late, a wise decision or it’s a compromised decision? Do you really know what are the things and habits your kids picked up from them?
   
4. Your demanded salary comes with more responsibilities. Meaning the company pays for putting you under tremendous work pressure & stress (which is hazardous to your health). Once you are unable to perform your job due to personal health issues, what does the company do?

Do you have your priorities in order?

21st Century Super Duper Spoilt Brats!

Our parents say sit, we sit. Eat this (even though we hated it so much) and we swallowed it. No TV means we are grounded and need to keep our face into our books. If we want toys, we only get it during special occasions and the choices of toy available are rather limited. We were such obedient and easily satisfied children. And of course, we get spanked whenever required. There was this authoritative influence in our parents that we all feared.
Now compare our childhood days with our children’s – sigh! We used to follow behind our parents. But now, we are chasing after our children! What a huge difference!

• We ask them to sit still for 5 minutes, they start running around after 1 minute. We, then wonder if we should take them to see a doctor because we think they are hyper-active.
• We put a healthy meal plate in front of them. They pushed it away, throw a tantrum and go on a hunger strike. Because we are worried that they’d get hungry, we cave in and take them to their favourite fast food joints for some unhealthy food.
• We buy them some toys each and every time we go to Toy’R’us or any departmental stores, even though we know that some of the toys at home are still in their boxes / wrappers.
• We ground them when they misbehave ….. but to what extend to we ground them and how strict are we?
• We try to give them the best education, but when our child fails, we blame the teacher - not our kid or ourselves.
• How often do we pick up the cane and give them a real good spanking for their wrong doings?

Didn’t we learn anything parenting skills from our parents? Do you think that we are better at it than our parents due to our ‘advanced new knowledge’ our parents gave us? Is because our parents didn't love us as much as we loved our children?

Then, why are our kids so ........?

Man vs Woman …. Round 2 : “Big Baby Small Baby”

During courting days, there were only 2 of us….

In our early marriage days, there were also only 2 of us ….

During pregnancy, there were 3 of us. Man was excited about the 3rd us who didn’t require our attention yet.

Early days of parenting, there were 3 of us. Man was delighted about his new playmate and wasn’t paying much attention to us. We felt neglected and started to spend more time with the baby.

After sometime, man suddenly realized that we were now too preoccupied with the baby to notice them. They felt insignificant and began to also cry for our attention.

At the end of the day, the original plan of the 2 of us taking care of the 1 baby, we now find only 1 of us not only with 1 small baby but also another big baby to handle.

Man vs Woman …. Round 1 : “Before & Now”

Since the beginning of time, men have always been labeled as the stronger sex. They were the protectors for those who are weaker – basically women and children. Centuries have passed, and evolution amongst animals and mankind has taken place …. except men. Sigh!

Before ….

Men work 9 to 5 (depending on occupation) till about 55yrs old to provide for the family ie. food, clothes, shelter and occasionally a little treat for his family with the remaining money he has after spending on himself, with his other male friends or keeping mistresses for some.

While, women bears his children and spends her entire life taking care of the family till she no longer has the capabilities to do so. For some unfortunate women, they are to endure the occasional beating from their drunken, hot-tempered husbands and dare not even raise a single voice for defense. And obviously requesting a divorce from the husbands was a taboo!!

Now ….

Men still run the same routine, especially for the typical traditional / conservative male chauvinist pigs as before. However, there’s a small group of men have taken the effort to pick up some trades from the women. Some of them even excelled at it. (We salute you, men!)

We, women are still the baby factory and are still have to take care of the entire household. If our husband is well off, we may have the luxury of hiring helpers. Women in this century, no longer need to depend of our husband to provide for the family or take care of them. We are now slowly but surely invading the world previously conquered by men only. During certain instances, men these days sometimes turn to us for support – be it moral, work or even money. (Shame on you, men!) When we are fed-up with too many unacceptable lame excuses, we can just move out and tell him to meet us at the lawyer’s office.

A nation on FAST FORWARD mode

Being known as one of the most populated, the fastest growing nation and once many concerned of it's lack of proper sanitation facilities (which has improved mainly in the major cities & developing pockets) .... I really wonder how did they now become a hero from a zero?

In a developing country, the countrymen are supposed to be able to benefit from it in terms of knowledge, employment and business opportunities - which will at the end of the day lead to wealth. I would also assumed that some would be contributed by the government efforts via improved education systems to equipped the younger generation with the proper knowledge for their future. I guess that I should not have assumed too much.

Instead, I find the most fundamental matter (in my opinion) which is the current education standard here completely unacceptable. I now realized why the reputation of its countrymen are as such - they have not choice but to be who and what they are today to fend for themselves be it for survival or out of envy of thy neighbours' wealth. Therefore, one would find malpractices, corruptions, ruthless business conducts and many more here ... especially when foreign investors are moving out their key foreign talents, making way for localization. Due to greed, localization had caused many brands uncalled for distress, shame and loss not only in its own land but also worldwide attention.

After all the efforts, "sweat and blood" put in to build this nation to be what they are today, have now been washed down the drain at the push of the button all by they themselves. Have they no shame? Will they ever wake up and reliaze their mistakes? How long more will it take for them to regain the world's confidence?

Too screwed up for me here

Being away from the big glamourous city, now in a small town in this part of the world, life is pretty laidback. But then, you need to always stay alert for scavanging opportunist trying to take advantage of you. It's also hard to differentiate to what extend how fake is fake.

After 4 months moving here, giving up my fastpaced career in KL, it was still bearable. 2 weeks my daughter been in school, I've had enough! I'm sick and tired of this place. Firstly, they didn't give her any work in class because the teachers didn't know if she can and didn't bother to try her out. Then, teachers just rattled on in classes without much concern if the new foreign student understood all that she preached. I've asked the teachers to pay more attention to her but it fell to deaf ears. My other half told me that I should have stayed at school longer to monitor the teacher more. Who am I? A teacher-sitter, now?

Based on these and the quality of education here, I was considering for altenative education options for her. The last draw to really get her out of the local kindergarten was when my daughter returned from school yesterday complaining that she don't learn much here and they asked her to say a few phrases in English to her classmates. What kind of a crap teacher / school is this?

No offense to this overly crowded nation ... it is a nice place to live in. The only thing you got to be vary of are pickpockets. Other than that, I feel much safer here than back home.

Which type of a woman are we?

There are typically 3 types of women or are there more ...

#1 Desperate Housewives

• woman looks happily married but has a dark secret
• woman giving up her career to take care of her children
• woman with the perfect hair, making the perfect meal and the house is always prim & proper
• the dumb-blonde who attracts rich men but after sometimes she gets bored of what she had
• woman hanging on to her pride after her husband left her for a younger woman
• single and desperately trying to find love in the first available man she finds
  

#2 Lipstick Jungle

• woman whose husband feels insecure because she's earning more than him, spends more time at work than home
  
• woman feels lonely and insecure because of the man she loved doesn't find her attractive anymore
• woman struggling with her career and trying to find true love
• woman building her building her career while having fun
  

#3 Happily Ever After

• Says it all!
  
• No need for any explanation!
  

Why men are like this today?

From the beginning of creation ....

• 1st day ..... let there be light
• 2nd day ..... let there be an expanse (sky) between the waters
• 3rd day ..... let the water under the sky be gathered to one place. The dry ground appeared was called land
• 4th day ..... let there be vegetation
• 5th day ..... let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night
• 6th day ..... living creatures created in pairs - male & female - MAN was made and then only WOMAN, out of man's ribs
• 7th day ..... was rest day

My thoughts ...... it should have been the other way round.

After man was created, he had spent all of his time having fun in the garden with the animals. At the end of the day, he saw the mess he had created. He didn't know how to start cleaning up his mess. And he couldn't find a suitable helper. So, a woman was made to help him to clean up his mess, take care of the garden and feed the animals so that he can rest.

Due to him being so self-absorbed by his own greatness, he forgot to feed her. So, she had to go look for her own food and she found the best fruit in the garden which gave her great wisdom. She was very kind and wanted to share this with man (The biggest mistake woman ever made!). When man realized that woman is wiser than him FIRST, man blamed woman for not obeying him. Because of the kind nature of woman, she kept quite and took all the blame and continues to accept all the punishment caused by man ..... until today.

Dessert : Red bean with Lotus Seed

Ingredients :-
Red beans (you may add some green beans if you like)
Lotus seeds
Some dried mandarin peel (optional)
Rock Sugar

Method :-
1) Put the beans & mandarin peel into the boiling water & simmer still soft (or desired texture)
2) Soak lotus seeds then remove the core which is bitter
3) Pour the lotus seeds into the almost ready beans together with the rock sugar to taste
4) Simmer for another 1/2hr or till lotus seeds is soft

Then it's ready to be served.

Trust no one for your own survival sake

Being employed means .....

I have my own money at my own disposal. I don't need to ask my other half monthly grocery expenses, answer for extra cash required to get your little princess another Barbie doll set, permission to buy a $500 pair of shoes, go pamper myself at the spa ....

I could disagree with the decision made by my other half because I also contribution to household expenses.

I can decide where to take my parents for holiday ... and dare to leave my other half behind.

I get to flaunt my assets on a girls' night out after brushing off my other half's disapproving looks and comments.

I'm not afraid of what the future holds for me ..... as long as I'm a income earner. I know that I can count and depend on myself.

But, now that I am unemployed due to my visa limitation ..... I have to ask money from my other half and answer to all his queries as to why I need the money for.

So, if I can help it, I'd rather be the person who at the end of each month get paid for all of my hard work. I also get to do and say what I want, whenever I want.

Dealing with a Picky Eater

My daughter has always been a picky eater and I've been always accommodating to her taste-buds. My principle then was "As long as she eats, I'm happy". Only to realize how wrong I was then. Now, before she even try any new type of food, she has labeled them as "Not nice" and she won't even try a bit.

Time to change for a more nutritious meal. The best I've ever managed getting her to eat without picking out certain food is pasta.

Found a site with 20 tips for picky eaters you may want to check out if your kids are also picky eaters.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/childrens-health/HQ01107

Time to get OUT! Goodbye, Boss....

During weekdays, we spend most of our time at work with bosses breathing down our necks to meet numbers and clients screaming at us for jobs due only tomorrow. When we get off work, we rush home to our spend a pathetic one quality hour with our kids (This applies especially for people without maids). Once the kids are in bed, we then only shower .... but we do not hit the sack after that. We pulled out our files & laptops and starts working till we are too ....zzzzzzz....... If we are lucky, we get to spend 100% of our weekends with our family.

Out of the sudden, someone we know has suddenly fallen ill or even called home to be with God. Then we starts to wonder about our daily routine lifestyle, was all these really necessary? Do we really need to work so hard to one day in the future be living is mansion, drive our dream car, have a collection of LV handbags, etc - which we may not even live that long to see it. Was all the stress we go through worth the money earned. We'd also missed seeing our kids childhood and the chance to groom them into a fine, honest and successful adult.

So, it's time for us to start thinking of alternative careers - being your own boss or another job that allow us to give priority to what's most important.

Firstly, we need to know what we want to do. Some of my friends started off by taking classes after office hours and began taking small orders from friends. Once they find the potential in their hobbies, they'd consider quitting their jobs to concentrate in turning their hobbies into a small business.

Check this out http://mammamea.blogspot.com/

21st Century Women wanting to be in control

Most women back then were not as privillage as us women now.

Many of them ...
1) weren't even given proper education
2) had to work to pay for men's education
3) tend to men's egos, needs and wants
4) even if women were working, they are always ruled my men

In this century, more women are slowly but surely taking over the positions which were previously held by men and are also fighting for equal rights. Men have now learned to live with this and know that they are no longer the sole bread winner in the family. Even though women now lessens the men's burden in providing for the family, some men still wants to be treated like "the-man-of-house".

1) Was it because of the upbringing by our parents
2) The fear of lack of good men and therefore we ourselves to over pamper to avoid losing them