>> The Flipside of Me <<

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

2010-05-02T17:52:00.003+08:00

The past week had been quite a blow for me. News was out indicating a move by the company I'm working with in it's decision some of its operations to move to a low operating cost country. Apparently Singapore is not in it's list of good countries in terms of operating costs and top management decided to shift operations to India and Argentina.

The release of this piece of news was quite shocking to us especially at the time when things are quite vulnerable. Don't intend to go into the details of this but all I know is that I would have to find a back-out plan fast; Options:

i) Either remain in the company and apply for an internal position in another department

ii) If I'm given the option of moving to Argentina (or India), my wife indicated that she won't join me (due to her work nature)

iii) Move on to another job. Hopefully that my current job here lasts long enough.

Looks like I have options 1 and 3 to consider.

Perth vacation

2009-11-08T17:52:00.001+08:00

Our family had just been on a 5 days 4 nights holiday to Perth. It was my first visit to the continent and my wife's 2nd visit there (I think). Somehow I had mixed feelings about our just-finished vacation to the city.

Firstly, as we are so used to the hustle and bustle of SG life, living for a few days in Perth where it is more laid back seemed "not normal" for us. Shops starting to close at 5 pm onwards? And by 6pm, all of the shops are closed and we had to resort to our shopping during the daylight period. That was some serious blow for us who are so used to the evening / night shopping activity in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The people just disappear after 6pm to the comforts of their suburb homes leaving the streets with the bar-hopping crowd.

The cost of living is quite steep as compared to SG... My colleague told me that it's not enough to just change to 500 AuD for all 5 days and she was right. Bulk of the money was spent on food / drinks and public transport. And I gasped at the taxi fare from the airport to our hotel (amounts to slightly above 50AUD). OK so I guess the public transport costs are more expensive in other cities like London, New York, Paris, etc. But I think it takes time to get used to it. So that makes me wonder what is the cost of living like for citizens there, what amounts to a decent pay package for professionals like me (if I intend to work in / migrate to Australia).

So that leaves both me and my wife confirming each other that life in Australia is not for us. Even when we know of 2 other people who are intending to migrate there with their families. We rather be citizens in our homeland than be migrants in another country. As what the malay proverb proclaim (after translating), "Even the grass is greener on the other side, it is still better on our homes"

What Is That? (A sparrow)

2009-09-22T01:20:00.002+08:00

Kudos to someone who posted this on Facebook... I almost cried watching this clip... As they say, a parent can bring up 10 children but 10 children may not able to support one parent...

Taz September Dubstep Mix by Taz

2009-09-07T17:16:00.001+08:00

Taz September Dubstep Mix by Taz

Phir Milenge!

2009-08-07T20:18:00.003+08:00

I'm all packed and ready to head for the airport. It has been a slow 1 month for me in India full of nice surprises along the way and some incidents which will remain in my memory for years to come. My work stint is OK but even for the hiccups encountered along the way, I can say that I've enjoyed my stay here in India for the past few weeks.

Bangalore is a nice place to stay despite the heavy and chaotic traffic in the city. Can say that I'm quite sheltered in Singapore and when I arrived here in Bangalore (and later in New Delhi), I get to see how the real India is like sans the Bollywood facade. It's sad to see beggars of all sorts roaming the roads, street children who live with their families in construction sites and other kinds of poverty conditions around the city. I made some new work acquaintances and let's hope that both parties in Singapore and Bangalore can work together well.

An advise that I would give to someone (especially if they're from a multi-racial society like in Singapore or Malaysia) who will be visiting India for the first time is that to unlearn all the racial stereotypes, slurs or jokes about Indians in general. Also do come with an open mind and be ready to accept them for what they are. A good example would be what my Thai colleague told me (during an encounter with a cab driver) that there are many languages and dialects spoken in India and to survive in the country, even the locals would cheat among one another. At least I come back home to Singapore hoping that I would be more racially tolerant with other after my one month plus stint here.

I did not travel much during my stay. I thought I would want to visit places like Mumbai, Goa, Jaipur and Udaipur. I decided to visit New Delhi and Agra (including Taj Mahal). I realised that travelling alone can be very lonely and I would want my family to be by my side, to experience the joys (and also the hassles) of travelling and exploring new places. Definitely I would return back to India some day (with my family) to experience the grandeur of Taj Mahal and the above mentioned places.

Just settled down in Bangalore

2009-07-05T03:13:00.004+08:00

So it's the start of my 1 month work in Bangalore. This is my first time here in India and I want to make the most out of this one month stint. Flew together with my Thai colleague in SQ flight. Journey was rather bumpy due to turbulence along the way. Once I reached the airport, cleared immigration and got back my luggage, I had a small problem with the India customs as my haversack apparently has a chalkmark X drawn across it. I carried 2 laptops with me and many cables, wires of all sorts for my gadgets... So maybe that explains the customs fiasco...

Once we got out of the airport (it was around 1030hrs IST), it's pretty cold and windy. Our journey to the hotel is quite OK as we start to get acquainted with the road users here. Lorries have a sign at the back "OK to horn" and our driver keeps on beeping at lorry drivers, motorcyclists, other motorists.. So I guess that it is OK to horn lightly. Try this back in Singapore and we will get the driver to chase after the person who horned.

So we are going to stay in The Residence Indranagar. Pretty decent place. Pics will be up soon. It's sleep and rest time... Another day beckons ahead later.

Paris review from a colleague

2009-06-27T09:48:00.003+08:00

One of my colleagues just went on a holiday spanning London, Scotland, Rome and Paris. Had a small chat to find out from her what her experience of Paris is like. She informed that it's full of Senegalese touts, gypsies and her friend almost got pick-pocketed in a fast food counter (but was foiled by the sharp-eyed cashier). From the description that she gave, it made as if Paris seemed a dangerous place as a tourist. She also claimed that London (and Rome too) is very much safer than Paris.

I've been to Paris in 2004 during our honeymoon and it is indeed a beautiful place, with the Eiffel Tower, Musee du Louvre, the wonderful Paris metro stations, the various gardens, Fontainebleau, etc. Our experience with touts was only at Montmarte where we were forced to buy a friendship band for 10 Euros from this Senegalese tout (who claimed to be a Muslim) after he had tied it on my wife's hand.

I hope that this does not stop me from visiting Paris again but I also wish that the place is free of such touts, pickpockets to make it safer for tourists.

Checklist of items to bring for BLR trip

2009-06-24T09:31:00.003+08:00

Now that I'm more or less being tasked to go to Bangalore for work (for a month), I'm trying to list of essential items which I need / might need for my stay there. I've come out with some:

1) Baby wetwipes. Convenient for me to clean my hands, seats, etc on the go
2) Dettol hand sanitizer
3) Medication for indigestion or bowel meltdown situations
4) DVDs to watch during free period (that include my long list of French movies recorded from Starhub cable)
5) Macbook (don't intend to lug my company laptop around for short trips within India) rigged with Adobe Lightroom, Reason, Logic 8 and The Sims 3
6) iPod
7) Ricoh GR Digital camera (with 24mm wide angle lens attachment)
8) Skype phone for communication with family in SG
9) My Sony portable DVD player (when I get bored at airports or in trains)
10) A book; "Underworld" by Don Delillo

Lift Pee Pee

2009-05-19T08:14:00.005+08:00

There's this idiot who keeps pissing in the lift of our in-laws' block EVERYDAY and all that the Pasir Ris Town Council did was just put a warning note on the lift. Not even a CCTV camera to catch the culprit pants down...

Just recently, a resident of the block took a citizen vigilante stand by posting his own notice on the wall of the lift. Lousy stick figure version but at least he gets his message across. Hope that culprit will be caught soon.

Tampines 1 Mall car park = FAIL!!

2009-05-01T09:27:00.003+08:00

Just been to the spankingly new Tampines 1 mall and my first impression of it (using my car to drop by the place) had been quite bad. Knowing earlier when it had just opened that the car park situation was quite bad, I thought that visiting the place during a weekday office hour (Thursday 30th April) there would be not much of a problem. But alas no!! Here's the rough timeline of what happened during the visit:

1450hrs: Reached Tampines 1 mall vicinity. There was a short queue outside. Noticed that there was a car park FULL and number of lots available sign outside. Queue movement is pretty slow as it goes down inside the carpark ramp.

1458hrs: Managed to go inside the car park. Noticed that within the car park there are NO empty lots sign available (unlike in Tampines Mall and Century Square).

1505hrs: After 2-3 turns merry-go-round round the car park, still no vacancy. Noticed a BMW parallel parking into an empty single lot.

1508hrs: After another turn round the car park still no vacancy. Beemer still trying to parallel park (BMW driver FAIL!)

1515hrs: Gave up on trying to find an empty lot. Went out of the place. Cashcard deducted 50cents. Frack!

1520hrs: Went to next door Tampines Mall. Immediately got an empty lot. Walked out next door to Tampines 1... Blegh...

Bad car-park planning!!!

Parenthood Chapter 2

2009-04-27T00:54:00.000+08:00

I know I'm quite sucky in updating my blog. Well here goes and I hope that the update frequency will catch up soon.

I'm proud to say that I'm in the Chapter 2 phase of parenthood. Our 2nd child was born on 5th January 2009, the second day which our dear Iffah started her nursery 2 school in Kids Meadow's kindergarten. Our son, Akif Nabil was around 3.2 kgs and our Iffah now has a younger sibling to take care of. Initially she was rejecting the idea of having to a baby boy as her younger sibling but upon his birth onwards, I guess her feelings melt immediately and she's now all loving and protective of him. Photos will be uploaded soon!

Azlina had just fininshed her maternity leave on 27th April and here are some of the things which happened along the way for all of us.

1) School for our dear Iffah can be an emotional rollercoaster ride for her. Getting her to go to school (and making her wear her uniform) is a herculean task for the whole family. But now, I guess she is quite adaptable to her school environment. Friendships are forged and she kept telling us of her friends in school; their characteristics, whom she likes and don't linke (she even has Mii characters set up in our Nintendo Wii!)

2) Iffah had finally begin to take her oral medication after not doing so for a really long time. This happened just recently when she got a viral fever infection after going to the library in White Sands. After seeing her crying in pain when being given suppositories and after 2 visits to the A&E department of KKH, she now can take some of her oral medication. At least those medicine which she's beginning to take now can help to remedy her fever which dragged for slightly more than a week. I'm proud of this milestone for her.

Books for Iffah

2008-08-06T22:17:00.005+08:00

"In September, on the very first day of kindergarten, Ms Bradley said, 'Each day of school, ...' "

These were some of the parts of a book (taken from Nancy Carlson's Henry's 100 Days of Kindergarten) which she had memorised and able to recite it by heart.

I'm glad that Iffah picked up reading at an early age, even though there were some attempts at getting her to know words via flash cards or watching Dr Titzer's VCDs when she was still a little baby.

Trips to the local branch library proved to be fruitful for her reading accomplishments. She would borrow some and we would read to her before her bedtime. Before long, she's able to relate the things which she encountered in the books to her everyday activities eg going to pre-school (ref Henry's 100 Days of Kindergarten) to baking a cake (ref Harvey The Baker).

As such, I managed to scout some 2nd hand Nancy Carlson's books on ebay and got them quite cheaply. These books are recommended for toddlers 3 years and above and also those who are going to pre-school.

Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!!

Henry's Show And Tell

Nasty car accident

2008-08-01T01:23:00.001+08:00

Something happened today which made me think that God wanted to give me a second chance at life and thus prolong it.

I was involved in a 3 car accident (including my car). Was coming back out of my work place car park ramp after my night shift. Saw an incoming vehicle turning into the car park entrance ramp downslope. My immediate brain reaction was to lift my foot of the accelerator and to jam the brakes hard. But instead of the brakes, I accidentally floored the accelerator instead. So you can imagine the speed upon flooring the accelerator and as such, my car hits the oncoming car (at the driver's side). Also, I had a 2 sec moment where I lost control of the vehicle and swerved my car to the left going into the main road and hit an oncoming taxi in the outer lane before my car came to a complete stop.

I was in a daze for a minute or two after that. I kept thinking whether anyone is hurt in the accident. I'm reliefed that no one is hurt and the drivers involved are rather reliefed too that they are not hurt as well considering the speed of my car at that time. My car is damaged at the front (it is practically smashed, but engine should be alright) and it had to be towed to the assessment centre for insurance claims.

All this had to happen on my wife's birthday (31st July). My wife appreciated me more that I managed to spend time with her on her birthday despite the car being towed away. We had plans to go out at night for dinner somewhere far, bringing Iffah out for a night stroll, etc..

Driving

2008-05-18T00:49:00.002+08:00

28th of May is the day I got my driving license. It was my second time taking the test and had chalked up 16 points for the test (compared to 42 points for my first test in 2003). Was extremely happy when get to know the result.

We bought a cheapo car (a COE Honda Civic ESI auto transmission with 3 years left) to familiarize ourself with driving in Singapore. I immediately drive the car to my in-law's place... heheh... had trouble parking the car in car parks. Up till now I'm still trying to figure out the fastest way to park. But I'm very good at three point turns in tight corners.

Speaking about parking, I hit some obstacles (walls, poles) while reversing as it has no reverse sensors. Also the front bumper is scratched as I tried to maneuorve the car park exit at my workplace. Urgh.... luckily it's an old car otherwise it'll be a heartpain if it were to occur on a new car.

Next comes driving in Singapore in general. Singapore has it's fair share of bad apples and wannabe race car driver poseurs with their big mean machines. Also bad driving habits of otheres like tailgating, road-hogging and tailgating make my driving experience here not so good. As much as I can, I try not to tailgate or road hog (especially on expressways). I value safety more than those drivers. Come to think of it, the irony is that professional race car drivers are one of the most safety conscious drivers around. If the road users are more courteous and safetey conscious, there will be lesser accidents and frustrations experienced... Peace

Klipsch ProMedia back in action

2008-04-04T08:27:00.002+08:00

My Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speaker system had some problems with its subwoofer some time back and it had been lying in my room for some time. Decided to send it for repair at a hi-fi repair shop in Sim Lim square (name of the shop is Sigma AV and it's in the 3rd floor of SLS). Repair charge was a mere 20 bux. Reasonable considering that there are no electronic parts spoilt. Just a minor readjustment of the woofer cone. Now it's time for rumbling, neighbour-complaining basslines... Dillinja's Jah Know Ya Big sounded sweet on the speakers... hehe.. Google out for the reviews of this speaker

Disney On Ice

2008-03-21T01:09:00.004+08:00

End of school holidays (Sunday 16/03/08), we decided to make full use of it by watching the last Disney On Ice show. Bought the cheapest tickets (at 20 bucks per person). As expected, we were thrown all the way back of the Indoor Stadium with a miniscule view of the show (plus some parts of the stage was blocked by the overhead props).

But when I went to the front of the stadium to get a booster seat for Iffah, I realised how good the view at the premiere rinkside seats were... They were smack right in front of the action where the ice-skating rink is and a very good view of the show. Our seats however, were quite filled with dating couples... No wonder the premiere seats were sold out! Next time we'll get the premiere rink side seats. It'll be a bonus if we can get a show where they feature the Disney princesses (Cinderella, Snow White, etc)

And she did...

2008-03-21T00:59:00.003+08:00

For those who don't know, that title phrase above comes from the kids story "Little Red Hen". We went for the Little Red Hen show at Alliance Francaise on 12/03/08 during the school holidays last week. Managed to catch the afternoon show (with many other kids from Kinderland ... presumably they're on a school 'excursion trip').

Having read the book to Iffah, I know how the story goes. To those who don't ... err please grab a kid's book and quickly browse through OK? But to watch it on a theatre / musical production, I'm pretty amazed at how a simple story can be very much entertaining. The production is good, stage setup is simple and the actors/actresses are top notch. A wonderful performance for both kids and adults.

Green or Red?

2008-03-14T00:51:00.001+08:00

After some contemplation, I jumped ship from the green camp to the red camp! So far no complaints yet... Hope it'll be good for the next couple of years or so.

My fitness level

2008-03-10T23:25:00.005+08:00

Fitness level is measured by IPPT test results nowadays... and if you happen to fail your 2.4km run, you fail the test. So does that mean that you're not fit?

This happened to me today when I did my IPPT. Passed with good results for the rest of the mini-tests but flunked the run by 20 seconds!!

I was quite ok previously (many years ago during my active NS years and early uni years). Went to the gym and did some cardio stuff. But I just slacked nowadays. Need to go back to the gym and start back my fitness regime. Plus need to shave off my diet habits too (especially snack cravings!)

Hang In There Iffah

2008-02-26T00:13:00.002+08:00

Dear Iffah,

You are now 3 years old.
No 'sleep'.
It is 'bitter' now.
Only Popper Juice or Smoo Milk for you
You cried to ibu yesterday, trying to resist.
I know that it is going to be tough on you
But hang in there dear Iffah.
You'll soon overcome
Soon overcome
And you will become a 'big' girl.
Always will be Ayah's little girl.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

2008-02-17T23:58:00.001+08:00

Wishing my daughter a happy 3rd birthday!

Daddy duties...

2008-01-26T00:23:00.000+08:00

I was on leave since Friday onwards and tried to take care of Iffah alone at home Friday morning. It wasn't all that bad except for the glitch in the morning when she woke up and saw that ibu is not around and she's alone with me. Little Iffah cried for a couple of minutes before cooling down. We went to the playground downstairs around 7:30 am. It's fun and cooling too having the morning breeze tingling us. Then it's breakfast time and entertainment time with her. Managed to give her Blueberry Morning cereal with carrot juice (minus the hard-boiled egg she normally gets when ibu is around). She entertains herself by playing the mini-games in www.barbie.com and gets me to read to her some books. I tried to engage with her in playing the Barbie as The Island Princess game in our new Wii set. Found out that she's scared by some of the sounds which came out from the gameplay and hid in her room. After that it's clean-up and bathe time before finally we went to Atuk's house at around 10:30 am.

All in all, it's fun having her alone with me which gives me more confidence in performing my daddy duties alone next time. :)

I passed my DELF B2!!

2007-12-18T04:14:00.000+08:00

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...

2007-10-16T01:15:00.001+08:00

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

2007-10-14T21:10:00.001+08:00

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

Hospital

2007-10-01T21:35:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-23T22:51:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-21T00:36:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-07T23:27:00.000+08:00

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

2007-08-28T00:49:00.001+08:00

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

2007-08-12T23:15:00.000+08:00

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

2007-07-22T00:39:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-19T23:21:00.000+08:00

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!!

2007-06-02T07:49:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-22T13:04:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-18T01:57:00.000+08:00

*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

2007-05-16T13:03:00.000+08:00

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

Ricardo Villalobos

Or Ellen Allien's

Me on Flickr

2007-05-05T23:45:00.000+08:00

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!!

2007-05-05T23:37:00.000+08:00

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

2007-04-19T00:19:00.000+08:00

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

2007-04-09T23:37:00.000+08:00

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

2007-04-09T23:08:00.001+08:00

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

2007-02-24T23:56:00.000+08:00

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!!

2007-02-19T00:50:00.000+08:00

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

2007-02-14T23:28:00.000+08:00

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

2007-02-12T23:27:00.000+08:00

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...

2007-01-30T01:08:00.000+08:00

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..

2007-01-13T01:38:00.000+08:00

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.

Ween!!

2006-12-21T00:58:00.000+08:00

Do catch this movie on DVD: March of The Penguins (rated 95% on rottentomatoes.com). Our dear daughter Iffah was so fascinated by it that she bought a penguin soft toy in KL and carried it along with her almost everywhere she go (mostly at home). She even said "Ween" (as in Penguin) and Baby ... Mummy ( referring to the Mother child relationship between the penguins) when I returned back the DVD. At that point I knew I had to buy it...

The KL Trip

2006-12-15T23:48:00.000+08:00

Just came back from our KL trip. Touched down SG at 6pm 15th December. Although we stayed there for 2 nights, it's been a really fruitful one. And I'm glad cos everyone had lots of fun, including Iffah.

First and foremost, I had not been to KL for a really long time ( around 9-10 years) and I'm surprised at the changes and advances that KL had achieved eg with the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) etc.

Here's some snippets of the trip:

1) When we touched down at KLIA, after getting off the plane, there's this sign/notice everywhere saying that KLIA is the World's Best Airport (15-25million passengers category). Now that's something Malaysia can be proud of. And with the ultramodern and quite aesthethic architecture, I think it deserved that award.

2) We took the KLIA Express train to Sentral train station in the city centre. It took around 28 minutes. And I'm quite impressed with its speed (even though it's around 176km/h). I've not taken train trips overseas much and will do so more for future overseas trips.

3)Our accommodation was at Berjaya Time Square Hotel and underneath this building there lies the shopping centre (more on shopping later on) and also the famous theme park where they built a 3 story roller-coaster in it! I managed to see the roller-coaster ride and I think it's quite a rough and bumpy ride with twists, flips and turns. Maybe next time I can ride in it ...

4) The shopping experience in KL is very much different than in Singapore. I'm very much impressed with the shops' lineup and the merchandise which they stock. The high-end haute couture stores are better than what Singapore has to offer (even though I don't shop there). Even the mid-range stores like Metrojaya (in Berjaya Times Square) and Parkson Grand (in Suria KLCC), the setup and range of merchandise is much like Paris's Gallery Lafayette.... many times better and they all beat Singapore stores like Robinson's and Tangs hands down. Now I know why people prefer to shop overseas.

5) KL must be a halal food consumer's paradise. There's lots of food to try down here than what you can try in Singapore. So far I've tried American (Kenny Roger's Roasters, etc), Italian (pasta, etc), the hotel's continental breakfast (getting tired of this though) and also BreadTalk!! Tried the Hot Chic bun (a chicken floss bun). Azlina mocked at me when I tried it for the first time.. hehe..

I will definitely visit KL again soon. Next time we will stay longer so as to visit the other places like Putrajaya, etc. Till next time.

Some pictures that we took:

Our first flight with Iffah. She's such a gem at the plane.. hehe

Us reaching KLIA airport

Inside the KLIA Express train heading for Sentral station.

At KLCC. It was raining in the area before this pic was taken.

Me and Iffah at Aquaria. It's like Sentosa's Underwater World in Singapore but with a mermaid swimming around!! Had to handheld this shot and didn't use flash in this pic so as to capture the blue colour of the aquarium better.

Us having a meal at A&W in Suria KLCC. A&W is extinct in SG!! And the glass root-beer mugs are way retro as SG used to have those glasses long time ago when A&W was around.

I also took pictures using my Holga camera. But alas... I made a fumble when taking out the finished roll... The exposed roll was exposed to some sunlight before I could safely tape the roll!! And I just got to know from the film shop that the roll is damaged and could not get good images... Argh!!!

PS: I don't know that the SG-KL shuttle flights are really that short.. heheh..

Our forthcoming KL trip

2006-12-11T23:38:00.000+08:00

This coming Wednesday will be our first trip as a family on board a plane and it will be Iffah's first plane trip and my 3rd plane trip (after Bangkok and Paris). Even though it's a short distance but we feel that it will be a good chance to test her on a plane ride (she had gone through 2 ferry trips before and maybe she's not suited for 4-5 hour coach rides). As such, we paid quite a premium for convenience sake and hope that it will be worth it. Some details about the trip:

Duration: 3 days and 2 nights
Accommodation: A suite in Berjaya Times Square Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
Flight: SQ !!!

Pictures will be up soon.

Next family holiday? Will it be Florida, California, London ? I really wished that I could go to these places with my loved ones soon. Bet Iffah will have loads of fun there too

PS: The call-centre of Singapore Airlines sucks.. you can't get a person to attend to your call even though I tried calling it numerous times. Singapore Airlines... not a great way to call...

Zoo outing today

2006-11-23T23:25:00.000+08:00

We went to the Singapore Zoological Gardens today as I'm on a one week break / leave. It's quite an enjoyable experience as Iffah is now able to walk around but more importantly she knows quite a number of animals (from picture/story books) such as the lion (yen as she would affectionately say), bear, giraffe, etc. It's her 5th time to the zoo and my second time with her. The last time I was with her was when she's around 5 months old. Glad that she can appreciate this outing better and it's definitely one of our enjoyable and memorable outings. We went in the morning, just in time to see a couple of animal shows (the sealion and elephant shows), had a wonderful North Indian lunch and enjoyed a wet play session with her at the children's play corner.

Iffah in front of the lions' den

Some daddy - daughter bonding time at the wet play area

Outings to the Singapore Zoo can be fun with kids around, especially when they can appreciate the animals that they see / come across in books or from the television. Hope we can visit the San Diego Zoo when she reached 5 yrs old.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2006 and beyond

2006-11-12T21:08:00.000+08:00

This year's Ramadhan and Aid celebrations in Pasir Ris is quite hectic for both of us due to work commitments. Azlina had her numerous assignments to hand in and me with my tough shift work schedule, made this year's celebrations quite short. Even though we had a month to celebrate the Hari Raya celebrations and visitings, our schedules are pretty tight and my weekends are burnt most of the time with work. I felt quite bad for both of us especially Iffah who did not go for Hari Raya visitings to our friend's homes. I would love us to visit our friend's homes with Iffah tagging along. That would hopefully improve her social skills as she's quite shy and insecure with people beyond her social circle.

Our new home in Blk 486 is not quite ready yet and as such we can't have friends who would want to visit us for Hari Raya. Perhaps next year. It'll be more than ready by then. We also decide to have both our bathrooms renovated. The whole renovation process can be tiring when we tried looking at various contractors' quotations, their showrooms, etc. So far only Chew Interior Design was the only inspiring showroom that we've been and we were AWED by it's extravagance in everything; it's decor, furnishings etc. But to have that design involves quite a big price tag and we can't commit to that yet. So in the end we chose the company U Home for our bathroom renovations for it's moderate pricing. Let's see how their service turn out during the next few weeks.

Three of my friends are getting married back to back from next week onwards, starting with Ahmad Jaya. Then it's Azron (who was my best-man for my wedding couple of years back) and finally it will be Jeffridin. I'm very happy for them as they had been very nice to me in one way or another. Congrats to all three. *salute*

Mid-life career crisis

2006-10-12T00:52:00.000+08:00

I'm approaching the age of 30 soon next month and am now contemplating hard on the future prospects of my career..

It's been almost 5 years since I started working in 2001 and alhamdulillah I've survived well. It's just that now I need a career switch. Perhaps do something I really like to do (eg photography or maybe music production). I know that there might not be much of a demand out there for budding photograpers or music producers but it's something which I would want to venture into.

In Singapore we have been indoctrinated to be good citizens by following the traditional path of primary, secondary, JC/Poly/ITE, maybe University and later contribute to the economy. Our parents wanted us to become engineers, lawyers, accountants, etc... So I did follow that path, been through some difficult times in University and managed to land myself with an OK job 6 months after graduation. Now come to think of it, I don't really like what I'm doing. Computer hardware and software somehow does not appeal to me anymore.

During the past few years, I managed to learn some photography skills. Only thing is that now when I'm married, with a kid, etc it's quite difficult to sustain the interest (I very much would like to!!!) I do have dreams of having my own photo studio, working as my own boss to my company, etc. I hope to achieve this dream some day.

With regards to music, sometimes I wished that I could learn the piano when I'm young as it would be the basis to a good music education and maybe a music career. Learning the trumpet since secondary school is not enough. And now, I'm currently exposed to good music from radio, internet and my record/CD purchases... I'm not satisfied being just a listener!! I would want to make music myself and market myself as a music producer! (after learning some software and hardware of course)

I'm also currently learning French (advanced level) and would love to apply what I've learnt overseas. That means working in francophone country or any other country where the job scope utilises the French language. But that means we could only do so after Azlina's teaching bond and by then Iffah would be quite old enough. Living overseas for some time would definitely open up my senses and perhaps give my career a much needed boost. We'll definitely consider it when such opportunities come knocking at my doors..

Some things I learnt during my reservist period for the IMF season

2006-09-20T23:00:00.000+08:00

Officially, the IMF is over today and my reservist duty for the IMF period ends yesterday. It had been a hectic 1 and a half week or so with little rest plus me getting our new house this Monday. But hey, here's some quirky things that I've encountered

1) I've been brainwashed by TV Mobile!!!! Imagine having to sit in a bus escorting delegates with the notorious TV Mobile screening unnecessary stuff eg "Planet's Funniest Animals", "Singapore Idol", trailers of Little Man (urgh) and John Tucker Must Die, etc... Funny thing I noticed is that the foreign delegates were just simply bochap with our new bus technology...

2) Referring to above, I happened to watched an episode of a current Arts scene related program called "Front" on TV Mobile hosted by Eunice Olsen, Kumar and Debbie Wong. There was this segment on the Singapore Biennale 2006 . More specifically, the program has a puppet segment called "Arty Farty" and in that episode, Arty and Farty critised the spate of the mascots of the Singapore Biennale, "Mocmoc and Mermer"... Hmmm wonder who came up with such stupid names and stupid designs which looked like the Teletubbies hah. Anyway, here's an image of those mascots in this blog. Now look closely at the middle of Mermer... and what do you see? Heheh....

3) The notoriously long bus rides which the lengthens a short trip from their hotel to Suntec City made a female delegate from France blew her top. Apparently they were quite late for the meetings but yet the route that the bus was supposed to go is SO long that they insisted to be taken to Suntec City ASAP!!! They said that they don't want to go for sightseeing and just wanted to go there to work pronto... So planners of the IMF for SG please take note of this when doing such plannings...

After the HDB second appointment... finally the house is ours...

2006-09-20T22:34:00.000+08:00

The wait for our new flat was finally over last Monday. Despite of my busy IMF schedule, we managed to get the keys to our flat from the owners. I almost blew my top when our agent Adi, told us that not all of the listed previous tenants of our flat could come to HDB Hub for the appointment! Apparently one of them just got discharged from hospital that day and prefarably all of them don't want to come down for the appointment! Adi informed me that I might have to come down again on another day for the completion of the HDB legal process. Urgh.. These people caused me plenty of inconvenience ever since we signed the option to purchase agreement. Also Adi said that their agent did not control them well. We had waited for them for around three months until they managed to secure a deal for their new flat.Then came the 8 weeks wait for the second appointment date... Macam macam dugaan sey!!! Luckily for us, neither of us need to come back to sign any papers.

Then came the second flat inspection later in the evening. It seemed that the family did not take good care of their flat. The walls are full of scribblings by the children, kitchen sink has leftover food at the water outlet (yikes!!), place not cleaned up properly and just today I found some cracks near the kitchen sink... I guess from this day onwards we are definitely going to renovate the toilets and perhaps the kitchen too. The living and dining area looks ok. *sigh* I thought I would not want to spend much on renovation works but it seemed otherwise now. Oh well...life begins on a new chapter for us. Hope that Iffah will be happy with us in our new home and can adjust well to soe new arrangements; like waking up in the morning and make our way to Atuk's place across the street before me and Lina make our way to work..

Our new house...what's it like now

2006-09-11T22:24:00.000+08:00

Geesh.. it's been a pretty long wait for our new house. And finally the waiting period will be just one week and from 18th September onwards the flat in Blk 486 is ours. Some general info:

1) A 5 room improved (5I) apartment on the 3rd floor
3) Cost is less than $300K
3) Floor space is approximately 121 square metres (I really treasure big floor space apartments rather than having to squeeze into those 'new' flats in Sengkang or Punggol)

Now the question is, how far are we going to refurbish or renovate the apartment? Typical renovation packages nowadays would cost more than $20K and definitely you can get the look of your dream house with that kind of budget.

But I think we would do things slowly instead of renovating everything in one shot. Here's some images taken from the apartment 'inspection' that I went just now.

Here's the dining area facing the kitchen (those kids are the children of the current owner!)

Here's the view of the dining area facing the kitchen:

Lots of work need to be done. Painting, repairs, etc. But all that can be done slowly and most importantly both of us must love the finished product. So looks like any form of open-house can be done much later.. haha.. I hope that Iffah would adjust easily to our new home. Hopefully I can post some pictures of our house after we moved in and done some touchups. Till then...

NTU and NIE

2006-08-18T10:36:00.000+08:00

Yesterday me and Azlina went to NTU to purchase a laptop. NTU had this laptop fare where sales people from various brands like IBM, Fujitsu, Toshiba, etc.. Hehe first thing which caught my eye when I entered the bazaar is the Apple Macintosh's booth. The Mac Book Pro 15"... yummy ... heheh... Too bad that they don't have the 17" model on display.

Anyway Azlina purchased an Acer Travelmate 3010... for portability reasons. Never mind that the optical drive is an external device... It's very light (as compared with my old iBook or my office HP laptop) ... Love the wide-screen-display of most modern laptops nowadays. But the waiting time for the purchase to complete, urgh.... extremely horrendous!!!

We went there in the morning. Had to get a queue slot to collect it. No available queue in the morning so had to come back in the afternoon at 3:30... I went back home (yes... to Pasir Ris!) and came back again at 4pm to join the queue. Thought that since the queue was short, but I was deceived... It took me one hour in the queue for me to reached my turn!!! There were like 3 people manning at the counter but what were they doing??? Not efficient I would say. But hey, I had my Sony DVD Walkman to occupy my time on the queue.. heheh. Watched the second disc of Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam 2 at that time...

Azlina gave me a short tour of NTU and NIE in the afternoon. Noticed that in NTU there's not many power points for laptop usage (unlike NUS where students made use of their laptops for online LAN games among their peers... hehe). And hey, there's a bridge linking NTU to NIE (similar to the Engine bridge at NUS .. *wink wink*) . It's been a long time since I stepped into a university campus ... feels nice that I'm out of the uni system now... yay!!

Time filler for bus and train rides

2006-08-17T00:50:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Starhub, I can now watch DVDs/VCDs and Divx movie files on the new Sony DVD Walkman below
Got this from the Starhub reward points plus top up some cash. I've been eyeing on portable DVD players for some time as I would want to watch movies on the go, especially borrowed French DVDs from the Alliance Francaise library. The player above can practically play all region discs (hurray!!) which means you can pop in any DVD and wham out comes the video! I had this fear when I got back home with it as it stated in the manual that it would play only code 3 discs. Here's a features list from Sony's website:

Feature List

7" Widescreen1 LCD is large enough to view movies in theatrical 16:9 while still being portable.

Unique slim one piece design allows you to easily pack and take anywhere you go.

Built-in Lithium-ion Battery gives up to 3 hours2 of battery life on one charge and is un-obtrusive.

Multi-Format Compatibility3 Able to playback multiple formats of both audio and video discs. Supported formats includes both dual and single layer DVD-R/R DL/RW, DVD+R/R DL/RW, Jpeg CD’s, MP3 CD’s, CD-R/RW.

High power speaker/charging cradle has 450mW + 450mW of power which can turn any space into your own personal theater.

Selectable Video In/Out allows you to connect external video sources such as your game system, camera or VCR and use the unit as a Monitor. The video and audio out ports allow you to hook the DVD player up to a full size TV and sound system.

Twin headphone jacks make sharing a movie with family and friends easy by allowing two people to listen to the same audio at the same time and share the enjoyment.

Wireless Remote controls playback and volume functions.

Kick Stand and ergonomic grip add convenience and ease of use while on the go by providing a comfortable and easy way to hold or display the unit while on the go.

Le Héros

2006-08-10T23:09:00.000+08:00

Here's something which I got from a French AvantGo mobile webpage. Managed to download some French stuff for my reading pleasure at my PDA. The stuff below is about the myths of a 'hero' ... I'll upload a translation of it soon.

Le Héros

Donnez-moi un héros, j'en ferai un mythe.
II portera une armure brillante, ou peut-être pas,
un héros ne craint pas les coups.
II sera empêtré dans une sombre histoire,
avec des morts évidemment cachés dans les placards.
II s'en sortira sûrement, ou peut-être pas,
on peut mourir en héros si l'opportunité se presente.
II aura un cheval, pas le choix.
II aura à sa disposition un millier de situations convenablement construites afin qu'il puisse y briller.
II aura mille occasions de se conduire en héros.
II sauvera quelque chose, une femme, le monde, voire sa seule peau,
mais un héros se doit de sauver - ne serait-ce que les apparences.
II prononcera de grandes phrases dramatiques,
les yeux mi-clos et le mégot rouge vif.
II aura des signes particuliers, comme une cicatrice et l'héroïsme.
II verra souvent le trépas de tres prés mais pas trop.
II aura un nom, que je lui aurai choisi.

Donnez-moi un héros, il sera remarquable.
Des héros comme lui, il n'y en aura pas deux au monde.
II fera l'Histoire des lors que je ferai la sienne.
Et l'on dira de lui : "Ce type-là, nom d'une pipe, c'est un héros".
Sans doute, même, je serai fier de lui.

Weekend getaway at Royal Plaza on Scotts

2006-07-31T17:00:00.000+08:00

We had a cosy weekend getaway in town to celebrate Azlina's birthday today (Happy B'day dear!). Twas quite a good deal after we could not get to book a room at Hilton after finding out that the Starhub Rewards program for the offer had just been discontinued. Thus we had to find an alternative and a room at Royal Plaza suited us fine. For $160 (after taxes), we can get a basic room in the heart of Orchard Road with Far East Plaza just a stone's throw... heheh...

The hotel claimed that it was the only hotel which throws in FREE broadband connection for those with laptops... Now that's something.. Too bad we didn't lug our laptops in. Room occupancy during that time was at 100% and we were quite disappointed that we had to be contented with a smoking room as there's no more rooms available in the non-smoking sections.

Lunch was at Far East Plaza and we did some shopping at Paragon kids section on the 6th floor. Boy dear Iffah just wondered in and out of the shops... Had a wonderful time the three of us.

Dinner was at Cafe Vienna. Now the last time I went there was some years back with Azlina on her b'day as well. Now with Iffah along it's quite an experience. Dining with our baby in a buffet setting.. We had to take turns eating. And we need to watch her as well. Now that she can walk easily it's even a challenge as she sometimes would want to walk around the restaurant or outside.

Long wait for our flat

2006-07-25T00:29:00.000+08:00

Finally!! After months of waiting we're finally starting to make the HDB transactions for our future home!! It's been a long wait and a roller-coaster one too as we were contemplating of abandoning the transaction at one time as the sellers were SO CEREWET in searching for the new flat!!! And now we would have to wait 8 more weeks before the transaction is finally complete. Well at least we're getting somewhere. Just in time for a Hari Raya open house? Hope so...

Underwater World

2006-07-19T00:04:00.000+08:00

I've not stepped into Sentosa's Underwater World for a long time and it's a first for our dear Iffah. She's mesmorised to see all those fishes in the tanks. And she looked lovely in her new summer dress. It's a pity that the weather's scorching hot in Sentosa and I must have been feeling dehydrated during the later part of the day. Here's a short video clip in the viewing gallery.

Wigglee woops!

2006-07-14T23:05:00.000+08:00

Video of our daughter taken by my wife. Heheh.. she's a darling

Malay mat who does not play soccer

2006-07-11T23:24:00.000+08:00

World Cup games finally over and since I'm a student of the french language, naturally I would want France to win. They had a good second half match in the final with Italy but threw their chances away with an unnecessary red card after Zidane headbutted the Italian. Such a shame for him. Maybe he was verbally insulted by the other party which caused him to blow his top. ..Hope he won't be remembered with slogans like "Headbutting It Like Zidane"... much respect to Zizou !!!

I'm not a soccer fanatic and neither do I play soccer/football. I know that it's a bit unusual for a Malay Mat like me who does not play it. Well I tried during my primary school days and also during my teenage years. I played on the fields around our neighbourhood and also at our void decks. But I just don't have the knack of tackling, passing, dribbling, etc. I just don't know why.

I also don't watch much soccer. Not English Premiere League, Italian League, Spanish League or Malay Mat League across the Causeway. But I watched the World Cup Finals from beginning to end just to soak in the atmosphere (sad to say that I was working that night but I managed to sneaked out to Buangkok for a a public screening) hehe.. My office place in Changi had the Frech drapeau hanged outside Thales Avionics Managing Director's office and I was quite proud to see the French expats in SG who were quite patriotic of their football l'équipe... Allez Les Bleus!!!

Things to listen to during an east - west train ride

2006-07-04T23:15:00.000+08:00

Last week I had reservist training at the new Home Team Academy located at Old Chua Chu Kang Road, which is all the way in the western side of Singapore. Since Lina had experienced the journey from east to west (bus - train - bus) to NIE, I told myself that I'm not going to be bored on such a long journey (can be close to 2 hours in total!) As such, I loaded my ipod with long mixes to listen to during the journey. A particular current fav of mine is the Essential Mix by Masters at Work. Two more would be Z-Trip's Live @ The Beta Lounge and his Anti War Mix set to protest the Iraq War in 2003

Enjoy folks :)

Phone vid of my daughter

2006-07-04T22:29:00.000+08:00

We went to Pasir Ris's Explorer Kids last Sunday morning (my first time down there). The place is meant for kids below 13. There's 2 ball pits and a giant obstacle-cum- maze for big kids. Our daughter, Iffah, had a fun time playing in the ball pit and the slide as you can see in the video here:

She's such a gem when comes to playtime. I'll post more quality vids from our video cam instead next time.

Happy Father's Day

2006-06-18T22:42:00.000+08:00

Wishing all fathers out there a Happy Father's Day.

A father's presence to a child can really make a difference to me. I do not get much (in terms of his presence, guidance, love) from my father last time (my siblings experienced the same thing also). What I wanted to give now to Iffah and my other children later on (God willing) to give all the love, guidance, warmth of a father. Iffah now is growing up to a sweet toddler and watching her grow from the time she came into this world on 17th February last year to now gave me lots of joy and excitement.

Any presents for me? hehe... I got myself a HP ipaq 6515 to replace my old Tungsten E. Got this after renewing my Maxonline and upgrading the service.

Iffah is getting more confident in her walking nowadays and I was lucky enough to see her walking about in our house last Thursday when I'm on off-duty. This enough makes my Father's Day gift complete this year. :)

Bouts of consumerism.. hehe...

2006-06-15T22:39:00.000+08:00

Firstly thanks to Lina who bought for me my first ipod (see previous post)... I'm also waiting for the arrival of my first Birkenstock (bought cheaply on an online spree from her contact) ... hehe A Florida model like the one below

She bought a Papillio Florida Field of Flowers model. Hmm will Iffah buy a Papillio or a Betula? Or maybe a yellow Croc sandal... hehe she will look darn cute in Crocs or Papillios... hehe

Here's other stuff on my wishlist. Will I or will I not get one of these in the near future?? Only time and my pocket will tell:

1) An Apple Mac Book Pro (17")!

A headturner and crowd puller anywhere... A marvellous upgrade from my old clamshell iBook.

2) Any good LCD TV which can display HD video... It'll be good for movie viewing at home later on... Having a projector is a bit out of the plans as it involves having a dedicated room with black curtains, etc

Enough for now... hehe

I shall not lose my ipod.. i shall not lose my ipod...

2006-06-15T21:50:00.000+08:00

A rather boring day yesterday at work which folded to a panic state situation and a relieve. I was on a work site when I realised that I had misplaced my ipod (a birthday present from Azlina)!! This resulted in a frantic state where I tried to recall the places which I had been for the past half hour ranging from MRT toilet to the HDB office.. At the same time, I began thinking what my wife would say to me if I broke the news to her.. sheesh.. That alone occupied a great part of my afternoon during work. Thougts of her nagging at me, being disappointed, etc ...came racing to my mind. Sheesh I even dropped by Funan to check out the current prices of the ipods now and even contemplated of buying one.

Things started to pick up for me when I found out that I had left it at my office (in a plastic bag with my CD). A nice ending to a long day...

Talking about losing things, I'm prone to losing my stuff due to my carelessness and forgetfulness. Sometimes it costed me lots of money. Some of the stuff I lost:

1) My IC (twice!! The second occasion costed me $300)
2) My CD player and headphones. Together with a bag of CDs (some of them could not be found in SG due to their limited availabilty...) Lucky bugger must be grinning ear to ear.
3) Handphones when leaving out of taxis (twice!)

Sigh... I hope I don't lose more things next time.

PS: Azlina lamented that I may lose her next time when I go out with her (like .. leaving a place without her) .. hehe . I don't think it can happen lah... how can I lose her like that...

View in black and white

2006-06-10T17:50:00.000+08:00

After a sleepy morning during French class (slept throughout the break. That's not normal of me to sleep during that time), we had a rare treat of exploring a photo exhibition at Alliance Française titled À l'imparfait de l'objectif'. The special thing about this exhibition tour is that 2 of our tutors were there to give some insights on the photographer, Robert Doisneau, and commentaries on his famous works; his major themes of his photos, his style, etc. Here's an excerpt below from Alliance Française Singapour's website:

A l’imparfait de l’objectif comprises photos Doisneau took throughout the course of his life, in which he attempts to illustrate his visions of beauty and goodness, and to share with us moments of happiness found in daily life. Witness to a tumultuous history, haunted by the inevitable passage of time, Doisneau endeavours – by capturing superfluous and unfinished expressions – to make each and everyone of us aware of the temporal nature of life.

Here's some phone cam pics which I snapped at the gallery (I got a casual c'est interdite! remark from a professeur after snapping a shot of his most famous work Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville.. hehe)

Here's the phone cam pic of Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville.

Our current tutor Étienne

Another one of our tutors Jerôme explaining to us the photo. I wouldn't want to explain what is the content in the photo about.. hehe... hit me if any curious buggers out there want to know...

Hairdressers 'lepakking' in a Parisien café in the 60s

Thanks to Jerôme and Étienne for lecturing us througout (in french)...

Ouch my feet!

2006-06-08T13:05:00.000+08:00

I have this problem with my feet. It stinks! Hehe... this problem of mine, I don't know how to resolve it permanently. My feet is prone to blisters and also fungal and bacterial infection. This infection was the worst in April where it had infected my leg and groin muscle and as a result I could not walk properly. It happened again this week. Decided to see a specialist at National Skin Centre. Didn't think that the total cost of consultation and medication would exceed $100. But alas, it went up to around $160!. Checked that one of my medication costs ard $63 for a box! Now I know why they say medical costs in SG is rising and only the well-off can get good medication. As of now, I really need to take care of my feet. Wouldn't want such thing to happen again.

First week in temporary home

2006-06-03T23:18:00.000+08:00

It's been 1 week since we have moved to our temporary home in Pasir Ris St 21. It's my in-laws' place; an Executive Apt which has a huge living room but small bedroom (for us). A slight inconvenience for us as our room is small for all three of us. Plus, going to places like Orchard Rd, etc for shopping is a bit of a hassle considering the longer distance that we have to travel. Moving out from Marsiling Rise last week to Pasir Ris was a lil bit tiring and the change in living space needs time to get used to. Also this is considered as my 4th moving house for the past 29 years of my life (1st in Clementi, 2nd to Hougang, 3rd to Ghim Moh).

Having our own personal space means a lot to me as we could have our own privacy in our own abode. Just earlier this week we contemplated of having voiding our contract with the seller of our choice flat as they were taking their time to find their flat. That pissed me of as we waited for almost 3 months for it after signing the agreement. Now that we are back on track waiting for our HDB apointments (1st appointment due on 24th July). Urgh I really can't wait to have my own space. Space to listen to my music. Space to watch DVDs privately. Space to watch my French programmes on cable (without having to share TV with in-laws). I really value such privacy so that me, my wife and Iffah can enjoy quiet moments together. Perhaps we can try cooking our dishes together later... hehe

Of carnivals and Simmons

2006-05-21T23:12:00.000+08:00

Carnivals are meant to be a place of enjoyable atmosphere where there's good food, maybe some live music (eg at WOMAD), interesting stalls selling accessories, knick-knacks, etc. A place where one can busk in the food, music and maybe get a cool souvenir (I used to buy cool WOMAD T-Shirts last time). Yesterday's carnival was run by students of Millenium Institute (my sister's current place of study) and it was not that bad except for some hiccups. Throngs of students from both MI campus congregate yesterday at the Toh Tuck campus for an afternoon of food, fun, games and some music (live band and from a DJ console playing cheesy dedications.. urgh). Thought I could get some good food and drinks but with the packed-like-sardines-crowd in the canteen, I could hardly get some decent stuff. When I bought drinks, the vendor told me that they ran out of ice and had to bear with one cup of bandung with ice and the other without ice (each costing 2 bux!). Then came the queue for the Ramlee burgers. I was hungry during and needed food asap! But with amateur vendors haggling with impatient customers who request 4-10 burgers at one time, I managed to get mine after 15 min of waiting. Quite a scene to see students cooking up burgers on the spot; In that stall alone, there's 2 cooks, 1 chap to put mayo on the bun, another to put chilli sauce on it... must have been an experience for them...

Went shopping at Robinsons today as it was the last day for their mattresses sale. We test drived the US 's no 1 and 3 mattresses (Sealy and Simmons) and was quite impressed more with Sealy's range. Simmons' mattresses had to rely on their heavy marketing (the one where the lab technician plonked a bowling ball and it does not disturb the other bowling pins.. ) and we weren't impressed when we lied on them... Knowing that it was the last day of sale for the mattresses at Robinsons, we decided not to purchase them today as there's not one that we wanted to plonked more than 1.5K for a mattress on that day and decide to wait for another round of test drive at IMM for the Serta mattress that we aimed for. Hope it's worth the wait so that we can pass our current mattress to Iffah ...

What's next?

2006-05-19T23:40:00.000+08:00

My wife, Lina had just found out that I started my own blog. I told her not to make fun of me or snigger at me. She had been blogging on her site since our daughter Iffah was six months old last year. The site is her personal space where she writes on her experiences as a mother to our Iffah. And it's been a good read on how our daughter grows up now.

As the title of my personal space here is on the flipside of me, I'd start with some personal intro about myself first.

Name's Tasha, 29 this year, working with a french firm for more than 3 years now, father of a lovely daugther Iffah Aqila.

Things that make me go hmm.. :

Lina and Iffah are the 2 darlings of my life right now.
La musique (I count the music beats in bpms). Currently have more than 2ooo tunes in my ipod and having a hard time sorting 'em out! Love collecting 'em.
La photographie (I belong to the old school of thought favouring the 35mm or 120mm film media over digital). Did not take photos often nowadays. Just got a contact print done using Ilford B/W film recently.
La langue française (the french language).Currently I'm an advanced student with the Alliance Française de Singapour and love learning the language. It's something which I wanted to do during campus days but do not have the chance. Proudest moment during my learning experience? It's when I got 4th place in the Tan Sri Dr Runme Shaw Cup organized by the Alliance Française for the best student award 2006. First prize was a sponsored trip to Paris and learning french at L'institut National de Rabouillet for a week ... *sigh*

First toss...

2006-05-17T20:04:00.000+08:00

Folks.. this is my first attempt of yanking my ideas/thoughts/ramblings out of my head to be published in cyberspace (in other words, my first attempt of blogging.. haha) I know that I'm quite slow in embracing this hybrid cyberspace tech.. but hey.. I'm joining the bandwagon too haha..