Monday, September 18, 2006

1809

I am older by a year today than I was yesterday.

So here are some trivias about Lollies that you do not want to know but I just want to tell anyway.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Lollies!

  1. Lollies is the world's tallest woman.
  2. The pigment Indian Yellow was manufactured from the urine of cows fed only on lollies!
  3. More people are killed by lollies each year than die in aeroplane accidents!
  4. Lollies was invented in China in the eleventh century, but was only used for fireworks, never for weapons.
  5. The canonical hours of the Christian church are matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, lollies and compline.
  6. Lolliesicide is the killing of lollies.
  7. Lollies can drink over 25 gallons of water at a time.
  8. Owls cannot move their eyes, because their eyeballs are shaped like lollies.
  9. Lollies can give birth ten days after being born, and is born pregnant.
  10. A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are individually known as lollies.
I am interested in - do tell me about

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Word Sunday : Tame

jack


To tame is to establish ties. said the fox to the little prince in "Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery".

To tame is to make oneself be needed and to feel the need for that someone. Said the fox again.

The time you wasted on that someone makes that someone important. And when you have tamed someone, you have the responsibility over it.

JackJack is now two years and three months and he is still breast feeding. I have tamed him too well and now I find it hard to untamed him against the comfort of my bossom. Each morning he wakes up, he insist on no other milk except mine. I gave him the bottle and he has now progresses to 2ml of chocolate milk, after which he will come running for more of natural milk.

It is harder now that I am not working. Unlike his sister and brother, where I can do it in phase for I am not at home at least half of the day. Or I can put strange stuff on it so they would finally refuse.

But with little cutie jack O' Buddy, I am finding it real hard to pull it off. He wants it all the time. In fact he is on my lap at this moment milking away.

Now we all know, when there is a will, there is way.

Perhaps it is me. I have tamed myself to be needed by him. I have tamed myself to enjoy him close to me. The need to give. I enjoy the moment with him when i can sniff his hair. Stroke his cheek and forehead. Play with his lobes. Mum his fingers. One of the times that he would surrender to me without any struggle.

Am I selfish? Knowing that he might be my last child. *Sigh*

The joy of breastfeeding is tremendous and to finally take it away, for good, is tough to my heart. I may sound like I am complaining sometimes. Look lover he looks like he won't quit you know, I mumble. But to tell you the truth, I do look forward to his ritual of asking for milk before he goes to sleep. Hijavascript:void(0)
Publish Posts uneasiness when he sees me at the computer. Our night cuddling.

I am the one who needs to untame myself. Untame myself from all the need to breastfeed him. In due time, I will.

There will come a time to let go.

Friday, September 15, 2006

The Walking Greased Pan

I am bronze to start with. And I get dark quite easily like in a few minutes of exposure to the sun. And this constant exposure to sun is making me darker and I think I will remain this colour forever. Of course I use sunblock each time I go out, now for the rays are merciless. Sunblock is not to stop you from getting darker. It just help prevent the harmful UV hitting on your skin and deteriorate it quickly, aging you with even more wrinkles and spots.

But I never like putting on sunblock you know. It is usually a bit sticky and it makes my face look oily especially those sunblock with higher SPF. What is worst are those sunblock that is suppose to make you look fairer. I will turn "kelabu" (grey) instead.

It is very humid at this time of the year as well. The moment you walk out, you'd be sweating. It is not as humid as Malaysia though. But Malaysia is not this hot. So here we are drenched in sweat and sting by the heat at the same time.

(source weather by CNN relative humidity: D0ha-62%, Kua@la Lumpur-69%. Hmm I thought it is higher.)

So look at me walking about in the sun, madly perspiring, laden with some oil substance on my face getting darker at each step.

I look like a freaking walking greased pan.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Word Sunday : Simulation is Stimulating



I am getting my brains all worked up chauffeuring the kids around. I find it rather stimulating actually.

You see, Haziq's school is quite far. Normal time for me to reach there is about 20-30 minutes. Batrisyia's school should take me a mere 10 minutes. But because of the traffic both due to large quantity of cars going out and many roads closed, it takes me 45 minutes to reach her school and coming home from haziq's school takes me more than an hour. Macam balik kampung siot.

So I had to adjust my timing and even the routes. There are no other better way to Sya's school. The only way for me to reach on time is to go out early. Which is working.

But for Haziq, I really have to try out a few different routes. The whole city of D0ha is interconnected in a mesh road network with parallel roads and roundabouts and intersections. The route I usually take is the shortest route but it took me more than an hour to reach home. Die. So I studied the map, marked all the closed roads, closed roundabouts, jammed road - to be avoided, identified possible routes and checked them out and timed them as well.

Sometimes a route looks good on the map, only that it is closed or half closed causing massive jams on the actual. Q@tar is forever changing and upgrading the roads. My map is getting obsolete by the day I think. I bought a newer map with all the little roads. He he.

So I was driving and constantly referring to the map for another route. It is like constant feedback loop to rectify the inputs to finally achieve the desired objective.

Then I got my brain all jumbled up. I was driving and I was thinking oh I can run a simulation on this. Get from point A to B, tell me which route is the best. And I must go through this point (marks Sya's school).

Of course to run a simulation you need to key in all the data, which I would be ready to collect. Distance from node to node. Road capacity (how many lanes). Load demand on road at different time differentiating peak time and off peak time as well as intermediate load.

Identify road on maintenance. I will identify all the ongoing projects and key in the commissioning date. I can immediately identify congested loads from this simulation and will try to find ways to avoid it or perhaps propose ways to elevate the problem (a bit far fetched of course)

I also can run a simulation on future load. A survey will be made based on the growth area of each location. Sectionalised to residential, industrial, commercial and farming area.

All these should help me identify what is the best route to take depending on the objective I want. To reach home at the quickest time? This however will probably require me to take a longer route. Then I need to balance fuel consumption and time.

Man I am telling you my brain got all worked up with all the virtual simulation. I am anal that way. Simulation is stimulating to me.

Boss, ada kerja kosong lagi tak?

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Driving in Q@tar

I have been seriously occupied nearly the whole day, every day, this week. I am driving my kids to school. I hope next week things would be much better. But looking at Haziq's schedule, I can see things might even get worst. Oh my online chatter friends, I miss you all.

If you think Malaysian drivers are bad, you should really come over here. It is easily ten times worst. You see queue cutters there? Over here nearly half of the road population cut queues, dangerously at that. Some would get on the kerb and happily drive on it. Some even get on the road dividers whenever possible. They overtake dangerously. Some overtake and even beam at you for being in their way. Hmmpphhh.

Most cars here are of big engines with hundreds horse power. Imagine these people with fast cars and big mean machine on the road. Scary youuu..If you are driving on a fast lane and you see those mean machines coming behind you, and you drive at only 120km/h, I suggest you give way.

D0ha is a city of roundabouts. This node must be the most dangerous place of all. Some goes speeding without even stopping at roundabouts. People here also seem to fail to understand the basic lane rules to approach roundabout. They take lanes whichever is convenient to them. Make sure you use all mirrors at the roundabouts and have eyes all around your head. They lurk just about anywhere. You want to go to the left (remember it is right hand drive here), then someone on the left wants to go on your right. And these are all at a fast speed. And because traffic is horrendous, do expect to perform stunt now and then. Otherwise you'd be stuck there at the risk of being stuck for ages, honked at and glared at.

And talk about honks, everyone honks here. Sometimes I just can't tell who the honker and the honkee, if there is such a word. Ha ha ha. So too bad if I don't even realise that it is me who was honked.

And now I am driving the kids, I see the worst of drivers attitude right here. The road to the school is practically jam packed. People start getting on the kerbs. They start taking over the opposite lanes. Parents fighting among each other. Honkings. Beamings. Absurd parking. Road hogging.

I think it is the heat. Its killing you and you can lose your senses under the fuming heat. Even in air conditioned car, the glare is unbearable.

Sounds like road bully on the road eh? People honk. People beam. They shout at you in the car. They use hand gestures like Karam Singh Walia to show that they are angry at you. But I have never heard people stopping you, blocking your car. No baseball bat. No guns. It's like hi and bye here. No grudges. That's what ar@bs are like. Impatient and argumentative lots, but it stops there. fight and kiss and make up. At least that's what I see lah. No kissing though.

Having said all that, do you know that people here would stop for pedestrians? Particularly the locals. I find this really surprising. I have seen them on the road. And this stopping for pedestrians amazes me. However they probably don't stop for males but they are very likely to stop for woman and even so if you have children tagging along. Anything with children, they would stop. Unfortunately I still find Asians not stopping.

You know in Mid Valley, people even speed up when they see you trying to cross in the car park. Over here a man halted his car with a screech when he sees me and the kids waiting to cross the road to my car.

There are things we can learn everywhere eh?


Sunday, September 03, 2006

Word Sunday : Cooker, Drawer and MONSTERssori



occasionally after my very so often cooking up wonderful cuisine because that is what a goddess do everyday, Batrisyia would come up to me and hug me and said, I love your cooking Ibu. You are a great cooker.

Ha ha ha, laughs Haziq. Ibu is a cooker! Ibu is a cooker.

Thank you Batrisyia, I said, because that is what you said when you receive a compliment. I am a cooker just like you are a drawer.

Ha ha ha laugh the comical Haziq. Sya is a drawer.




You know what. I looked up at answers dot com. One of the meaning for cooker is this

A person employed to operate cooking apparatuses in the commercial preparation of food and drink.

And one of the meanings of drawer is this

An artist skilled at drawing

I am confused now. My Ingris so bad.




The school new term is starting tomorrow. Sya knew that she is changing school but thank goodness she didn't ask me why she is not in the same school as Haziq. She asked me the name of her new school. I said D0ha M0ntessori British School.

She asked back, "D0ha MONSTERsorri"?

Ha ha ha, Haziq laughed at her. You are going to a monster school.

"Well", said Sya to Haziq her beloved brother, "You are staying in the same school. I heard that is because you have been naughty in class. You will stay put."

I am not.

Do too!


Anything as long as she din't ask me why she is not in the same school as her brother.