Looks like we have a new member in the big clan clan family. Not to mention the fact that she's already created so much excitement.
30 Jan 2004 9:18 a.m.
RHYANNE MA'IR RIDU ARRIVED 8 0725am 2DAY. DON'T CALL ME NOW WHOLE NITE DIDN'T SLEEP. TALK 2 U LATER.
SMS from the mother. Where she still had the energy to do all this, I'm not sure.
31 Jan 2004 6:22 a.m.
Email from Dad.
Dear Rowena, Rhyanna's arrival is quite and event..for Jack's family at last there is a Miss Ridu. For Sina...she learned from Maimunah that she has a "chee-chik" or grandchild in Malay. Both are well and Yolande is recovering fast. Jack and Garnette are supported by Napuun and Midang from Bario. WOW a high powered team for the little princess. The father....big 'ear to ear' smile for everybody.
Hi Dad! Something interesting no? Looks better than the way we do it with the miniature spoon. Although, I think what would really come out would be ugly. Urgh!
Dad : BTW, Yolanda has been admitted into the hospital. Baby is coming out and Johnny is laughing away. But he sure sound nervous about being a daddy and all.
Yesterday 9:42 p.m.
SMS from expected mother.
I JUST ADMIT 2 HOSPITAL. WILL LET U ALL KNOW IF ANY LATEST NEWS OF MY BABY. LOVE YO
Not the first mother-to-be that I know of who will be sending out SMS at this time.
Nearly injured a cyclist today. As usual, was on the way to work and nearing the Muara Tabuan roundabout, pottering at a sedate pace of 20 km/hr. Had to stop the car as the car in front was slowing down.
Suddenly, saw a helmet crashing in front of my wheels! Brakes brakes brakes! Car came to a halt while I looked to see if the motorcyclist is okay!
Apparently, he lost control of the motorbike and skidded due to the road surface or just plain bad riding skills. I didn't even touch him! A few more inches more though and his head is a goner underneath my front wheels.
come i bring you places i bring you swings go to big big fields we take a kite w us we buy ice cream cones and we sit under some tree i bring you blow bubbles i bring you to my grandma's place by the beach i show you my secret spots i bring you to this island that you can walk out to when the tide goes down i'll bring you to a deserted container ship that was once a home for a french couple abt 40 years ago we'll explore upstairs downstairs and all around ya i show you all my spots and when you look down frm the container ship you can see schools of small fishes swiming in the clear shallow water i bring you to the skating rink where i learned how to skate while skinning many knees to the lake i grew up w where i fed all those ducks and swans dry stale bread i'll bring you to my favourite tree by the beach. climb up and the leaves hide you and no one knows you're there but you can see everything. on a clear day, sumatra even
A conversation with a friend. Amazing how lyrical and poetic one gets, no?
More like my mind is staggering and literally limping. Oh yeah, New Year Celebrations are over and it's now back to the grinding board.
As for Dede, she's feeling better and is moving around more. Phew! Keeping pets is bad for one's heart. Still, she's eating the apples like mad. Finishing off a huge portion of it. Will probably give her more tomorrow to perk her up.
Tomorrow, it's back to the axe and grinding board. Argghh!! Why am I so busy during the 1st half of the year and more relax during the 3rd quarter and it's another rush during the last quarter?
Think she has the flu or cold. Sigh. After bathing her, she suddenly become more lethargic and sleeps more. She seldom opens her eyes anyway but one of them looks pretty watery. I'm hoping that she'll get better soon.
I think she caught it from me. I'm starting to feel a bit feverish myself. Sigh. How on earth does one go about feeding a hamster cod liver oil? And how the heck do I look after them if I myself have caught the flu?
I'm a sucker for stories of family. The ones which pulls the heartstrings and makes one cry. Even if the ending is sad. Would prefer happy endings but even sad ones will make me grab a box of tissues.
So I stayed up watching 'How to Make an American Quilt'. Makes me want to see the uncensored version. I wonder how many scenes were cut out from the movie. Hmm...time for a relook.
Hmmm....how about a collection of stories of my wee wee cousins, nieces, nephews and other stories I keep hearing from my elders? Wouldn't that be a way to blackmail in the future?
I'm just kidding!!! Although, it would be a great way to document down our family history, no? Two sections : the Chinese family and the Kelabit clan.
Hmmm... another project? Maybe it's time to do it before I forget and Granny moves along with her next phase in life.
*Thinking thinking thinking thinking*
Sigh. Too many ideas and so little time. Oh oh... David will start lecturing me on this soon after his posting.
I'm having a good laff here at BWG's posting. I guess Jake forgot that Chinese people themselves poke fun at other Chinese people. So, BWG was doing what has been going on for ages. Just because he's of another "race" doesn't mean that he also cannot do it.
Ah, the Chinese... and I'm one of them! Definitely fit in perfectly in this context.
I'm kidding but isn't the world a better place if one is able to put aside one's pride and 'face' just for the heck of it?
Remember Transmile airline? Before the current revamp of AirAsia, Transmile was the budget airline to use.
Seriously a Malaysian tourist attraction, if you ask me. The first time I took it, I think I freak out Dad. 'You sure it's safe ah?' Well, for RM73 back to Kuching for a short break (one way) a few years back, it was a trip back for a steal. So what if I had to put up with flattened cushion seats and no meals? At least, I remembered no meals. Literally sat on the frame of the seats. Still, it was a means for a poor student then to travel back to visit Granny in Kuching and meet up with my parents at a midway point.
A year later, Dad and I were waiting to catch our flight back to Miri after I've finished my course in KL. The flight was suppose to fly off at 3 p.m. but we only managed to catch it the following day at around noon time. Why? A Transmile plane had stalled on the runway due to some faulty electrical wiring and took 1/2 hr to be towed off the runway. This was at the old Subang International Airport. So we waited for our flight to be called but unfortunately, that did not happened until the next day. Other irate passengers were just itching to pick a fight with the MAS staff who were valiantly trying to keep the peace and get people off the ground and into the air. It wasn't until midnite did MAS arrange accommodation for us at Concorde Shah Alam. Well, we got a night's rest and told that we were to leave the hotel by 9 a.m. to catch the next flight. Dad and I did enjoy the free breakfast buffet at Concorde. Still, a stressful time when we finally did fly off.
Reading Dinesh's posting about AirAsia brought to mind a conversation I had yesterday afternoon with a collegue. Her sister miss her flight back to Kuching since AirAsia rescheduled the flight to 2 hrs earlier and did not inform her. Because of that, she had to pay for another seat on another flight as AirAsia admitted to her that they did not call her. This seem contradictory to AirAsia's Terms and Conditions item 8.2 :
In the event of cancellation or denied boarding, the following option is available;
Guests allowed to be transferred to the next available AirAsia flight without any additional charges. Fare value will be retained in a credit account for future travel within one year. Fare is refundable with 14 working days be allowed for processing.
I guess she didn't know about this and therefore did not challenge the AirAsia staff about it. I also brought it up to Min Yen who mentioned that her friend had a similar experience to the point that he now refuses to travel on AirAsia because of this. He now always flies MAS.
Traveling by budget airlines would mean having to put up with the inconvenience of slightly less than expected services. Then again, after hearing how my mother's flight got rescheduled two hours earlier without MAS calling her in the USA, it goes to show that airlines generally do not contact passengers to inform them in changes in flight schedule but rather it's the passenger's responsibility to check on the flight schedule. Having said that, it wasn't easy to find a clock in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and the Newark International Airport, NY.
Ah well. Should we complain? Definitely. I'm waiting to see when AirAsia and MAS will go for ISO9001. Things should be better then. Incidently, calculating the 87.91% punctuality within 1 hour for AirAsia for the month of December, it translates to AirAsia flights being late for :
3 days out of 31 days 52 minutes out of 744 hours
Moral of the Story : Book the MAS SuperSavers way way way way in advance before flying off. Else, don't make so much noise when using AirAsia.
I was about to update Mum-mum's when I realised that I've been neglecting this personal blog for a tad bit too long. So, decided to put some thoughts down.
After blogging the last posting, the thought of my Chinese heritage came up. Perhaps a bit of a hasty posting. However, that conversation with my Mum wasn't the first and neither will it be the last that I will have with many other people.
I guess it hit home when Mum was talking about how the Americans would speak about their Scottish heritage, British heritage, Spanish heritage in the US and how extensive they actually went into looking at their roots. Have I ever looked at my roots?
I remember getting weird stares whenever I said that I'm both a Malaysian and a Chinese at the same time. This was always in Western countries : UK, Europe and US. I guess it's hard for them to fathom that being a Chinese doesn't necessarily mean being from China. I've never been there and so far, I do not have a frantic urge to go there, YET. Probably will do it one day but not at this present time.
I remember speaking to my Sina' (Kelabit word for mother, she's my stepmum) about being Asian and Chinese. This conversation took place some time last year and I think we were just generally talking about family values. The idea was that universally, there should not be a geographical distinction between the different family lives of people living elsewhere. Everyone hates divorces. Looking after family members is a family obligation, be it whether individuals want to take it up or not. Politeness and courtesy to a fellow human being is the same all over.
Dad was mentioning to me about the usual Chinese custom of sending an engagement announcement with peanut sweets which I totally did not recall. This was when my sister announced her engagement. I came to the realization that I do not know enough of the typical Chinese customs. Sure, I know about the angpows, Chinese New Year celebrations, birthday dinners, some of the beliefs, other festive customs but not enough, I guess.
I'm learning as I go along, asking friends along the way and family members. Then again, it's not so bad as sometimes, they themselves are also finding out more and more about Chinese customs as some are pretty obscure or maybe we have not experienced it for ourselves that we do not know of it.
I'm glad I have Dad, Granny, Mum and my Chinese family members and friends to tell me what I need to know. I'm glad to have my Sina' and the extensive (!!!!!!!) Kelabit clan to tell me about their customs. Also, having wonderful friends of different races who put up with my tons and tons of curious questions throughout the years of asking 'Really?', 'How come?', 'Wah! For how long?', etc.
And speaking of Dad, just got an SMS from him to read the Borneo Post about hamsters! Haha!
So, 2003 went out quietly, or at least, quietly for me. There are fond memories and there are memories I'd rather forget but unfortunately cannot. Still, as each year goes by, it's nice to think that I did grow a bit more this time round.
Wiser? That's a debatable point. I wouldn't say wiser but rather, to think more clearly before jumping out of the frying pan. This is at work or leisure time.
Good points are this blog and mum-mum's and the book review blog as well as quickLAH. Then there is that fotolog blog of Kuching scenery shots. The theme should be about clouds and am thinking of changing that. Well, we'll see how that one goes.
I also had a marvelous time with my sister in the USA as well as catching up with Mum and her friends. It all feels like a dream that has occured long ago. One of the things my Mum did say was that the three of us (her, my sis and myself) view ourselves more as Caucasians rather than Chinese. It's not that we have forgotten our bloodties. Far from it. It's just that our thoughts and views seem more at home with the Westerners than Asians. Do we fit the Chinese stereotype? It depends on the definition of what is a Chinese stereotype. There are so many different versions of the Chinese stereotypes that the line is no longer clearly defined. It was an interesting conversation with my Mum which I think I'll not touch on it. People might feel offended by it and I'm pretty sure if others read this posting, they will feel that I betrayed my Chinese heritage. My question to them is what is YOUR Chinese heritage?
Okay, enough said about that. On another note, through blogging, I have met new friends and developed new ties. Reading blogs is now a habit for me and I can tell you, it's getting seriously difficult to catch up with Jeff Ooi after having a break from reading it. Why the break? Because of the travelling to the US!! There were also other blogs which I stop reading for awhile so oh well. Am now trying to catch up but it's definitely not easy.
Enough said. Think I jabber enough already. I'm definintely looking forward to 2004 and waiting to see what that year holds! I know one thing though : Jas and Donnie are going to get married in the middle of the year. So, let's see what happens next, shall we?
Posted at 3:30 PM.
Although, I think what would really come out would be ugly. Urgh!
Gives the illusion that the sun is behind the bamboo leaves, no?
