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.

Ween!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...