I passed my DELF B2!!

After some months of intense preparations for this, I was simply delighted to know that "j'ai reussi l'examen DELF B2"!!! Even though I have not got the actual results yet, I don't care!!! Feeling top of the world last Saturday (after my last French class for the term) when I saw my name in the list as the "candidats qui sont l'admis l'examen DELF B2!"

The months leading to the preparations were simply intense and at times I thought of just giving up. But knowing that I had paid quite a sum for this exam (preparation courses in May and the exam fee as well), I just bulldozed through the preparations.. Buying French magazines, reading articles on the net, anything just to keep my feet wet.

The exam itself was slightly OK, with the exeption of the killer listening comprehension (an interview about GENEPI (Groupement Etudiant Nationale D'Enseignement Aux Personnes Incarcerees) of which I left out 3 questions blank. Also, I attempted the oral question "Que font nos enfants sur l'internet?" (What do our children do on the internet?)

Time to get the C1 and/or C2 certs next year.

Some shoutouts...

To my younger bro Naz who bought me the Megadeth Warchest boxset from the US...


You're the man dude!!! The stuff is not avail in SG yet and think I'm one of the few who have it in SG... Great to see you travelling around the globe...

Secondly to my ex-colleague Jeffridin (I'm not sure if he reads my blog)... who sent me a Hari Raya card... so old school dude!! Thanks for it!! Really appreciate it.. Hope to visit you soon for Raya festivities...

Salam Aidilfitri from us

Sorry for the late post...Wishing all Muslims out there a Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri.... Maaf zahir dan batin from us...

Hospital

No it's not the drum and bass label Hospital Records... but it's about my daughter being hospitalised for 4 days 3 nights at KKH due to Rotavirus

It had been an exhausting experience for all of us (including my in-laws especially Atuk who ferried us to an fro to KKH since last Monday). What was exasperating for us is to see our dear daughter being fed with IV to keep her hydrated as she looked pale and tired when she was admitted.

Staying in hospital can be a hit-and-miss experience in terms of comfort and service expectations. We should have admitted her straight to an A1 ward as both of us (especially my wife) need to sleep over to keep her company. However our NTUC Incomeshield policy for her covers only B1 ward charges. The B1 ward that we stayed is quite cramped for 2 staying over adults. More pictures can be seen in my flickr site here.

Well, at least our dear daughter is well now. Thank God

The Bangla That Got Away

Something happened today which caught me and my wife by surprise.

Our maid had been with us for quite some time and so far we've been quite happy with her services.. She had been a great help to our family and my in-laws too.

Until today... because of her silly act which tilted our judgement of her and also caused her deportation back to her homeland tomorrow..

Today is Iffah's Sunday Gymboree class and we left for Camden Medical Centre at around 10 am. We also told her to clean up our place and do the ironings. Due to the fasting month, instead of having lunch outside as what we normally do on non-fasting months period, we went back home immediately after that. As we got back to our doorstep, and opened the door, I was taken aback to see a Bangladeshi coming out hastily out of Iffah's room!!!! It took me around 5 seconds to register to my mind that something fishy is going on down there!! Then our maid also came out of Iffah's room looking panicky and started to adjust her clothes a bit... hmmm what goes on before we came in I don't want to know. I asked the Bangla who was he and the maid told us that he's just a 'friend'... come on lah... don't lie to us...

Immediately I asked my wife to call Atuk to come down to our place asap... Atuk scolded her for a while and decision was made to have her deported tomorrow. We're going to send her back to the agency and say sayonara ....

What was she doing all these while at our place alone when no one's around?? Using our flat as a temporary romping place?? This is something which I really cannot take it.. If our maid was found to be doing things like breaking glasses, spoiling our clothes, tasteless cooking or even minor theft, I can still forgive.. but using our place to bring in your Bangla beau for sneaky breaks... then sorry... out you go... no more second chance!!!

Didn't manage to take a pic of that Bangla... but he left his footwear at our place and ran out in a hurry... so here's the pic of his footwear


Those are not Cinderella's slippers.... they're CinderBangla's!!!

Some signs to show that I'm adapting into my new job

Here's some signs to show that I'm adapting to my new job

1) More acronyms to learn and know!! (much more than my previous job scope!)

2) My body clock is tuned to US and London local times... Sometimes I cannot sleep at night (local Singapore time)

3) I'm beginning to know more about financial markets terminology (forex, instrument codes, equities, spot, futures, options, yadayada...)

4) I need to know other countries' public holidays.

Corporate events

We had a couple of corporate events for the past 2 weeks with the first one being a team-building with members of the MTC department at Sentosa island on 31st August. It was facilitated by staff from Focus Adventures (www.focusadventure.com) but instead of rigourous outdoor activities we had some silly games and a team-based cooking competition instead. My team was last in the cooking competition though, don't know why...

Just today we had another corporate event. This time round it's a charity based event organised by both the MTC and Data Ops department. Location is at the Singapore National Museum and task is to accompany some old folks from the Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital (on wheelchairs!) to have a tour of the musuem. Come to think of it, I've not been to the National Museum for more than 20 years! And now, with the new renovations and exhibitions, going to the museum has become a really cool place to go (especially with family). You can spend more than 4 hours and yet you may not be able to cover every square inch of the exhibits... Definitely a must for me to visit the place again!

I'm beginning to feel more belonging to a bigger corporate organization since joining Reuters. Perhaps better than Thales.

My most viewed photo in Flickr

Just found out that one of my photos in Flickr had 188 views! It's the one which I took during the Singapore Arts Festival in 2001. Also it's been selected for a photo book project called "Treasures Of The Dragon" ... that's great news.

Trip to Batam during National Day Weekend

Just came back from a short weekend getaway to Batam. Stayed at Holiday Inn Resort (this is the second time I've been to Batam and both times stayed in the Holiday Inn Resort). Some pictures are uploaded to my flickr site.

It was fun indeed and there were funny and interesting moments too. Eg:

• Our luggage almost got lost. We alighted at Sekupang terminal instead of Waterfront City terminal. Also we thought the luggage handling process was similar to airports but we were wrong. As such we had to wait for our ferry to make its way back to Sekupang to get our luggage. Ironically Iffah sang impromptu a tune with the verses ".. jangan susah-susah kalau susah-susah tidak gunanya.." Translated: "Don't worry too much cos if you do it'll be of no use.." Speak of good timing! We had a laugh during that time..


• Iffah can do the handstand in the water!


• During a bus ride to Batam Centre, Iffah sang the kids song "Wheels of The Bus"! Hehe


• We noticed that in Batam you can have 4 people riding a small motorcycle!! I saw some people carrying babies and toddlers sandwiched between the adults. Quite scary I must say.


• Their hypermarts and huge! They have lots of stuff (eg imagine stocks of the same products from floor to ceiling!


• Iffah had so much fun playing in a kids area that her ibu almost got scared of heights! There was this kids play area where kids can crawl/walk/ etc and it is around 3 HDB storeys high! Iffah is not scared but ibu got scared!

July activities

It's been a month since my last post... had settled down in my new workplace. Now trying my very best to excel in the job to show that I'm very much capable. We just had a team dinner buffet at Carousel last Thursday(the newly refurbished restaurant at Royal Plaza on Scotts, formerly Cafe Vienna). Place looks chic and food tastes great. They had Japanese stuff but I'm not into it. My wife and Iffah would love it. Will definitely bring them there one day.

I'm currently trying to get myself into the reading of books again. Had not done much nowadays. Went to Kinokuniya recently to get 2 French paperback novels and an English war memoir book titled "My Battle of Algiers". I had an interest in French affairs during the before and after the 2 World Wars after watching the movie "Days Of Glory (Indigenes)" . Azlina also bought 2 books (Affluenza and Fast Food Nation (the movie is a must-watch !!) )

Azlina's birthday is coming up. Last year we went to stay for a night at Royal Plaza on Scotts. This year, I'm hoping that I can get a room at Raffles The Plaza on 27th July weekend. This coincides with the National Day preview so maybe we can get a good view of the fireworks on Marina Bay. It'll be fun for Iffah to view the lights et all..

Happy Belated Father's Day

To all father's out there... wishing a belated father's day. We had an open house at our place on that day and it was sure a busy day for us. Had father's day doorgifts for all fathers who came and also some special father's day cupcakes.. Details check out my wife's blog. Invited some of my friends along. Thanks for coming guys! Appreciate the atmosphere. Sorry if I could not attend to you guys fully as I was busy with guests management..

Au Revoir Thales!!

It's been slightly more than 4 years since I joined Thales and it's definitely time for me to move on to a new career. Will surely miss some good pals that I forged during these 4 years (including those that had left Thales and also those who had gone back to France!!)

I'm certainly looking forward to my new turning point in Reuters next week. Surely have some anxieties, good expectations and hopefully more good friends / colleagues down there.

Lastly, I hope that I can continue with my French studies until I can dream en francais!!

Dell Laptop back in action

Dell support came today morning to repair my laptop. Found that can boot up normally before he even replaced the motherboard and RAM.. urgh.. anyway he replaced the mobo and RAM for me just in case if it were to happen again. Thanks Dell!!!

Anyway the laptop won't be with me for long as I have around 1 week or so more with Thales before I join Reuters. Bought a new desktop PC last Friday so that at least I can do some stuff over last weekend. Configuration of my new desktop:

AMD 4600 processor
Asus M2NPV motherboard
Kingston DDR2 667 MHz RAM (2GB)
Hitachi 7200 rpm SATA2 Hardisk: 300GB
LG SATA DVD/Writer
CoolerMaster Extreme 430W power supply
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 W/Side Window
Samsung 931BW 19" widescreen

I'm not into the heavy PC gaming so an onboard graphics card suffice.

Also when I went to Sim Lim Sqaure last week, decided to buy a Shure M44-7 cartridge to replace the old Stantons 500s. Besides, I had Stanton's iTrack for some time but in terms of power output, the Shure simply blows the Stantons away...

Dell Laptop crashed and can't boot up

*sigh* what a night... First I had to do night work to capture some Ethereal data for analysis .. but of all times it had to occur at this time...

I realised that I lost comms with my laptop after running the Ethereal program for some time. Went to check and found that there's a BSOD on the monitor. So I thought that by doing a hard reset, things would be OK. But no!!! It simply would not boot up to the OS!!! It just gave me a blank black screen with no hardisk activity.. now doing some diagnostics to see what went wrong. Also will have to get a new external SATA hardisk enclosure to see if I can still retrieve my unsaved data... I've been working on documentation for some time and I MUST RETRIEVE THOSE STUFF SO THAT I CAN COMPLETE THEM BEFORE I LEAVE THALES!!!

German Living Rooms Interiors

I want living rooms like these!!! Haha...

Ricardo Villalobos

Or Ellen Allien's

Me on Flickr

Decided to join the Flickr bandwagon too... my wife had a headstart some time back and it's time for me to join it... my screen name is tasha_abu_bakar .. Do add me in ya... To kick things started, have a look at the site now

Also just got my Ricoh GR Digital (with extended wide angle lens) and also a Canon 8400F scanner to scan my Holga shots and 35mm film stuff (yes I still love old school film)

Yeah!! New job!!

Alhamdulillah, just secured and signed the employment contract to my new job (refer to previous post). It'll provide me with a change of environment and definitely better career opportunities and advancements.

I will be joining an MNC company whose IT usage is second to that of Microsoft (as claimed during one of the interviews) so that roughly gives me an edge in having experience in a variety of systems, software, networks, etc.

So it'll be bye bye Thales in a month's time!!

Decisions, decisions

This week had been a rollercoaster ride for me... Due to my negligence and blunder, I had lost something valuable... Don't know what the outcome will be like... Hope it turned out well.

On the other hand, I had a talk with one of my bosses Herve and he shortlisted me to fill up his position as Technical Authority (Dept Manager also?? haha..) Was quite taken aback when he called me to his office to have a chat with him on this. Heard that the other shortlisted candidates (better in technical knowledge I would say) had backed out and another one is not suitable. So that leaves me... Should I take up this demanding role? This would definitely boost my career and CV (hopefully the pay package would be better too yeah?) But taking this up would mean lots of sacrifices.. 12 hour workdays are common I guess. I hope to strike a balance in family, career, french, photography and music... yeah

A call came in yesterday when I least expected. It was from an MNC (no names here yeah). I had applied for post recently and went for their first interview. But somehow the interview didn't turn out well when I found out that they might not make the pay package I requested. The call just now was to inform me that I qualified for a second round of interview. Hmm.. that sounds interesting. Why would they call me up for a second round?? I replied that I will give them a call later to confirm of my attendance. Called 2 hours later but could not get the guy who called me. Left a message for him to call me back but no reply...

So there you have it.. a potential career rise (3 times more demanding than my current scope) and a second job interview... all happened in 2 days..

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Just got this new Adobe software. I thought that instead of buying the full fledged Photoshop program, might as well utilise this first for my photo touch-ups and minor editing. One thing I noticed is that it is definitely RAM hungry (uses around 100+ MG of RAM). But on the other hand, it is definitely much cheaper than Apple's Aperture. James Duncan's site has a comparison between the 2 software.

Here are some screenshots of Adobe Lightroom on my laptop:





I'm intending to get a Ricoh GR Digital soon... Hopefully with Lightroom and the new GR Digital, it's a step towards better photo taking for me. And hopefully I can get the Canon 1D Mark iii and a Hasselblad 503CWD one day...

TV Dramas

I've just finished watching the 2 seasons of Battlestar Galactica on DVD and also Prison Break Season 1. Both series make good television viewing with lots of drama suspense, conspiracy and some emotional rollercoaster rides. And my Sony DVD walkman comes in handy here (although I would love to watch them on the comfort of my home's HT System).

Prison Break is now on its Season 2 run in Singapore (4th week). Thanks to Starhub's Smart TV, I can record it and watch at a convenient time. Quite well worth it I must say. Plus Azlina is also taking an interest in Prison Break series also.. hehe.. she will have to watch the first season to make things out in the current second season..

Runme Shaw Cup 2007 blues

Due to my tutor's persuasion for me and my classmate to join the Runme Shaw Cup 2007 (also known as the Alliance Francaise Best Student Award), I reluctantly participated in the event. This competion has 2 kinds of tests: one written and the other, an interview session.

Last year when I participated for the fist time, the written test was just a personal essay (of about 500 words or so) and it's quite easy (provided you write it in a coherent and grammatically correct manner). I managed to get third for the written test and fourth for the overall competition (after adding up the scores for both tests).

This year however, I was caught off-guard in the written tests. Firstly it comprises of a 4 mini tests marathon starting with a dictation test, cloze passage, written essay and a 50 questions quiz on French trivia. All these is written in the rules and regulation form but I just simply took it for granted. After a not so good start for the dictation test, I was simply blown away in the other tests due to its difficulty level (more in terms of comprehension and vocabulary skills). In the written essay section, I could not understand a particular instruction such that I left the whole section blank!! Argh!!! Then the 50 questions French trivia quiz, I just whacked out the answers by randomly selecting the choices in the given multiple choice answers. Who would remember quotes from Molière, Dantes, Voltaire, etc or who would watch French classical comedies, plays, operas, etc... Those things do not interest me as the level of difficulty is extremely high. Like what my wife Azlina told me, these extremely technical details killed the joy of learning a foreign language. To me, I learn French so that I could communicate well in that language when I go to France or other Francophone countries. I know that to learn a foreign language, you will have to be immersed in it's culture, literature, history, etc. But certain things just don't interest me...

Looks like my chaces of winning a prize in this year's Runme Shaw Cup is going down the drains.

PS: I didn't go for the interview test on Saturday after a bad day for the written tests on Friday.

Happy 2nd Birthday Iffah!!

We had Iffah's first birthday celebration at our new home on Saturday. Our daughter dearest turned 2 this year and she does look lovely and cute as the days go by. Ordered a Barney cake at Prima Deli's. Barney is one of the children's TV characters which she adores the longest period previously (currently now it's Dora).

A family pic on our new sofa

Interestingly, just the Friday before her birthday, she managed to say her name in full (Iffah Aqila Binte Tasha) and I'm very proud of her saying that. Also we managed to catch a video of her singing a Happy Birthday song.. She looked pretty on that day with her new dress (and always be) thanks to wife dearest Azlina..

Iffah gleefully holding on to a present

Here's the videos which we took using our digicam:

AIM screen name and Iffah's birthday present

I'm joining the AIM bandwagon.. So hit me up at the following screen name tashaabubakar .. Tried various other screen names like Taz, tasha_abu_bakar, etc but all were taken up (don't know why)

As for Iffah's birthday present, I manage to get a solid wood study desk at Mother Garden (in Vivocity)..

Our dear Iffah can now sit and write, draw, doodle or play imaginary cooking games on the table.. And I reckon it can last a few years as the size is still a little bit big for her.

On Leave

Appraisal's just over today and frankly speaking, it sucks. Gotto start all over again to prove to the management that I'm very much capable of doing things. Well basically they're quite upset that I did not perform well as a team leader. What can I do when I'm practically covering up holes in my team by doing shift work.. Can't seem to find the motivation to do extra things during my shift work nowadays. Maybe when I get transfered to the software design team then things can get better. And hopefully my pay packet can increase accordingly after another mid-year appraisal.

Anyway, I'm almost on leave now for the whole week until this Saturday. And this coming Saturday is Iffah's birthday. What shall I get for her birthday present? A dress? Books? Toys? Fisher Price turntables like this one? Haha..

Hmm.. have to get something fast this week. Also need to spruce up the house fast to get ready for the party at home this Saturday..







Iffah had grown up fast. From the time she came into our world 2 years ago, we managed to see her progress from a tiny baby to a cute toddler. She had brought lots of joys to us and is pretty smart and artistic toddler too (something I'm proud of). Well as a father I do hope that she will turn out to be an all-rounded child, teenager, adult later on. And I'm going to provide that support to her as much as I can.

Need a change of working environment...

Appraisal time is coming and judging from the people who are about to get promoted and what I had gone through for the past year or so, it is time for me to really move on and switch jobs. I feel that I'm being used to fill the gaps for the operational side of my team and my leadership skills (like planning, task allocation, delegation, monitoring, etc) is not being tapped fully.

I'm the so-called team leader for my team but I'm being squeezed to do daily shift work and other mundane operational stuff that I'm pretty sick of it to the point of being bochap at work.... I can't do much planning as that would stretch me to be doing more overtime... Speaking of overtime, one of my managers hinted to me that I had done 37 DAYS (not hours!!) of overtime clocked for last year and they're having a hard time of compensating for me ( by giving off-in-lieu or paying in cold hard cash)

To add salt to my wound now, one of my campus mates is being promoted to managerial level. Well it's his rezeki (blessed accomplishments) and I can't say much.. The managers in my company look highly to him and I guess he deserves knowing how much effort he puts in.

I have to stop complaining and move on. Find new jobs where I can be better off... Time to sharpen my resume and interview skills.

2007..

2007 started off pretty hectic for me as I was working non stop for 6 days in a row at a point. But things got to better for me (and my family) as we settled down in our new house. We started to stay in our new house late December '06. When I'm working night shift and when Azlina is having early morning classes in NIE, we would stay in Atuk's house for the time being. Also we started to spruce up our house more now that the toilets are ready (after the renovation). Went shopping at IKEA for furniture, kitchen-ware and accessories, Joo Chiat Complex for carpet, Tanjong Katong complex for curtain for living room.

I realised that a showroom flat will be difficult to maintain in a pristine showroom condition. So far, we are comfortable in our home and will try to make the best out of whatever we have to make it more homely for our family and more welcoming for our guests later on. Pics will be posted soon...

My French class started off well. Currently I'm taking the Paris-Lyon Web Multimedia class. Our tutor Youssef geared us up for more French culture this term and he incorporated cool multimedia stuff in the class. Last Saturday we did an in-depth analysis of an advertising campaign by Chanel (the Chanel Allure perfume slogan: "L'Allure, c'est ce qui rest quand on a tout enleve"). I guess that lessons now will be more engaging with all the language background that we have and I hope to complete the DELF B1 and B2 exams during the June summer period.