Taking a Breather on Blogging…

Confessions of an Anonymous Blogger

What’s Your Blogging Personality?

So, that pretty much explains why it is my Urban Notes not my Blog who has been capturing all my thoughts, confessions and observations lately.

Free as a Bird

Life has become so predictable lately. I wake up at 5:30am, drag myself to drive to work, and by 7:15am I would have passed through Jalan Duta toll to beat the traffic heading to my office. I would slave myself doing whatever it is that I am getting paid for, slope back exhausted and agitated, and by 8:30pm I would have reached Jalan Duta toll again heading back home. I would stop somewhere to grab something to eat, reach home by 9:00pm, freshen up then vegetate in front of the TV, and before I know it I would have fallen asleep on the sofa.

The morning routine would start as early as 4:30am if I were to head to another project office of 200km away to attend meetings at 10:00am. By 6:00am I would have checked in KLIA and board the plane heading to my destination. I would still be sulking when the steward/stewardess serves the pathetic peanuts and juice for the 45 minute journey, for losing an hour of beauty sleep.

I must have been too tired or still too sleepy to sulk that particular morning as the plane was about to touchdown, when I looked out the window I suddenly felt so free like a bird; home, home and dry; like a homing bird I’ll fly; as a bird on wings…

Ah, my mundane life is indeed beautiful!

A Day in a Museum – Musee de Louvre (Paris Spring ‘08)

Alright, I confess here and now that I am stuck in this love/hate relationship with blogging.

At times in between meetings my mind enjoys that pit-stop-wandering, and a few stories, wit, insight and clever thought suddenly springs, yet  finding the right time/mood to craft witty, meaningful and interesting prose is almost impossible, at least that’s the way it seems to me now.

My mind is now behaving as if it is spending a day in a museum, a bit of everything comes into play. And all these bits serve as a fizzing intro to the interconnecting myriad of corporate/personal life, the universe and everything.

 

Under My Duvet – Year 2

Who the heck is this anonymous blogger? I am not quite sure how many would be asking that question, since I know this tiny space is not explosive nor groovy nor haffenin as many other good blogs out there that worth dropping by. But, I was pretty pleasantly surprised when I noticed that there was quite an increase of hoppers stopping by my former little space, especially those coming either from The Queen/Matron of Malaysian Bloggers, Kak Teh, or from her Heathrow-like busy Sentral Station. Being a pathetic and sporadic blogger that I am i.e. my blog posts are very minimal and irregular, what I wrote is so boring it can even put a hyperactive cat to doze, I don’t know how to actively mingle virtually aka dropping comments, leaving trails at others’ although I have been a stalker to those many good blogs for years, it sure is nice and humbling when my former site is listed in both Kak Teh and Sentral Station.

God knows that probably was/is the main drive on why I keep struggling to let the ink flowing although honestly I don’t have much to share. My very hectic and demanding career sometimes makes me overlook that I do have a blog (yes, you, my most nearest & dearest, my wonderful colleagues, friends of friends, and relatives of relatives who somehow finally managed to unmask me. I am a blogger, happy? So, don’t be shy, drop a line or two, but pleeaaassseee call me as what I am identifying myself in this blogs ya …pretty pleeeaaassseee…) so occasionally when I dropped by Kak Teh and Sentral Station and I noticed my positioning was wayyyy down at the bottom, I panicked and slightly agitated, and I would scramble for anything to push my position slightly up again; hence that pretty much explained my previous post in my former site (if it can even be called a post that is); an entry about nothing since my mind was totally blank and I was contemplating to even delete the site totally. Phew!!! Thank God I didn’t, else I wouldn’t know where to park my rambling here. BTW, thanks to Ms B, the young hot yummilicious corporate jet-setting mummy; and KC the funny carefree supermom wannabe for the notes…muah..muah..muah.   

So what now? The malu-malu kucing cat is starting to come out of the bag now, don’t I at least have a courtesy to explain myself as a blogger, so at least people out there could maybe better understand why I write the way I have been writing, why I only write on things of which I have been writing, if may use Denise Richard’s reality show tagline, it’s complicated. Err… no, that’s not quite how I would explain my life now, it more like it’s boring. Yes, my life is so drop dead booooring, it only revolves around work, himself, cats, kampong,  work, himself, cats, kampong, err, I probably shouldn’t be repeating typing the components of my life here … see that’s how boring my life is.

But one thing for sure there’s one element that differentiates or more like alienates me from the rest of the happy bloggers in this whole wide web world; I am a DINK, and that is why I think Denise Richard’s tagline is very true in describing my life. Not only it is boring, it’s complicated. I probably can write a book or two about the ordeal, I may even be able to grab premium membership in Orpah’s Book Club (yeah right, wistful thinking) but as it is now I don’t even want to go near to the subject matter. There’s no more tears left in that department. Subject matter closed.

I was once reminded by a blogger friend that I need not go emotional when making blog entries, and that probably explains why my previous entries are mostly a bit impersonal, but I am only human with feelings and bad days. I am what I am.

Anyway, back to the happy blogging mode, I can’t believe that it’s been 2 years since I become part of this big virtual happy family of Malaysian life bloggers. I do hope to be able to continue scribbling, pouring my heart out on things that I wish to share, sharing my takes on life both at personal as well as corporate level. Who knows there could be souls out there who may be able to gain small benefits from reading them.

Happy 2^nd Year Blogging to me. Call me MyAnneJay, still very much NJ at heart, a Malaysian Boleh! life blogger

 

Mingling 101

I should think I have gone through all the worst days of my corporate life; after having been in corporate front for more than 10 years that is. There were times when I stumbled on words, scratching my head for a few seconds looking for words to say in front of delegates of our sister company from the neighboring country and when I was at the center stage’s podium in an auditorium. There were a few occasions when I couldn’t figure out how to answer in a very politically correct tone when some BOD members raised questions which may not be that relevant to topic being discussed without sounding condescending. There were also testing times when I had to maintain my coolness emotionally although it was very clear that those meeting delegates were trying to gang up on me pushing all the blames onto me while it was clear that it was everybody’s faults.

I should think after years of accumulating the tips and tricks of growing thick skin and maintaining poker face in all kinds of bad situations, I have learnt them all. Yes, give me all shapes and sizes of corporate demons and lemons, and somehow I will find my way to make lemonades out of them.

Except one. Send me to after work parties with instructions to mingle, to build better network with your counterparts, then I will fail. Fail miserably I must further qualify. I don’t know how to mingle, I don’t know how to make small talks. I just don’t know.

Just like the other night, where I had to represent Big Kahuna at the Corporate Raya Gathering of one of our sister companies. It’s bad enough that I have yet to really get to know the names of all these people. You see them almost every other day at the cafes, in the lifts, in the surau; and most of the time it was ok to just smile to each other without really having to utter or exchange words. But not when you were on your own walked into a room full of people whom although you might have bumped into them in one occasion or another, and you had to mingle and make small talks to them. And worse still, you were still in your ruffled office attire (I just didn’t bother to change to casual dress) while these people were in their glamorous & glittering Bernard Chandran-like outfits with their most sparkling bling-bling on.

So I just did what Betty would have done in parties filled up with Whilmenas, Alexis, the Mode models, and the likes. I was fortunate to finally be able to locate CP, a fellow number/project cruncher, at a cornering table. So we just quietly and discreetly filled our plates with the barbequed lamb, grilled salmons, sates, and what not and started stuffing our face with the delicacies, paying little attentions to those glamorous counterparts.

Yes, people did drop by our tables to thank us, to acknowledge us, to make rather awkward small talks, but we suspect it was because they had to and that they had no choice. We are the devils who they have to depend on and of which without us their corporate life can potentially cripple, so-to-speak. Hmm… come to think about it, I just love playing this combination of Ugly Betty and Whilmena’s devilish character. Muahahaha!!!!

Missing Raya Memories

They are missing. I have been searching high and low for them since this morning. They are not in the archived files of my notebook harddisk. They are not in my desktop archives either, nor are they in my portable harddisk. I can’t seem to find them anywhere. OMG! I have lost the collections of my precious memories of my celebrating Raya, last year and the previous year, and the year before that. Those were the snapshots of the happy Raya times Himself and I used to enjoy with both sides of our families.

Now all I have are mental pictures and video shots of those days as what have been permanently recorded in my memories. And I do hope they too are recorded in Himself’s memories as well.

I still have vivid remembering of those happy moments from Himself’s side of the family, although they are mostly the collections of memories of four years old or even older. For the obvious melancholic reason my memories seem to be blocking those Raya moments after Uwan, Apak, Omak & Kakak left us.

Himself and I would always make sure we were back for Mantai a few days before Raya or even Ramadan. Since we were the most flexible of the whole lot (well, Himself only has Yours Truly tagging along all these years, no other commitments, baggages, pebbles in the shoes, and what not so-to-speak), Bang Long, Bang Ngah, Bang Teh, Bang Chik, Bang Chek and Kakak had always by default delegated to us the responsibility to ferry Uwan/Apak/Omak around looking for good fresh bargain of daging kobau, lombu, ayam, itik to feed the whole clan.

Let me count how many they were. In average there were 9 members from each of Himself’ siblings, so there had to be lots and lots of rendang basah, rendang kering, gulai salai, ayam goreng, sup tulang, lemang, nasi impit, lodeh, kuah kacang, etc to be prepared. It was a painstakingly exhausting process from sourcing, cleaning, chopping, slicing, dicing, and cooking them all; but they were all worth it when the whole big family would congregate together in the night before the first Raya, enjoying every bit of the delicacies.

And after hassle and bustle of ironing tons of new clothes and the long queue to use the bathroom, we all then together walked to the mosque for the Raya Prayer the following morning. It was then followed by rounds of cooking, eating, teasing & laughing, and more rounds of cooking, eating & cleaning before we made our own way to the respective other half’s side of the families. They were undoubtly among the merriest and happiest memories preserved forever.

Reminiscing back, I think I might not mind trading my whole life to turn back the clock. Sigh! What a wistful wish!

I don’t know whether it is good or bad that all my Raya memories after being called a married woman seem to be allocated to Himself’s side of the family. It’s a bit funny too when most of those vivid moments from my side of the family are mostly coming from my childhood time.

As usual there were memories of lots and lots of firecrackers, we would be firing missiles of mercun roket to our neighbors and they definitely would be retaliating. The battle normally started after Maghrib prayer and there would be temporary ceased-fire moments when the parents from both sides shouted that it was time for Isyak prayer; and the fight would continue thereafter until we finished our good stock of fire-crackers. With no clear winner of who had won and who had lost we then converged to share our last stock of bunga api bodoh together.

And of course, how can I forget the homemade meriam buluh. Bapak was not much of an adventurous lot when he was younger (he is still isn’t now ), so when lil Bro was in his teen and he longed to compete with the neighbors on who got the loudest meriam buluh, it was Mak who helped make him one. We knew it got to be a big boom-bang one after realising the soil where lil bro half-buried the meriam buluh before lighting it to fire the night before was all burnt like hell. My Mak is one super duper cool Mak Cik Kampung, I tell ya

Sigh! And now after all these rantings and ramblings I still can’t find where I might have misplaced the CDs and DVDs containing those happy Raya memories.

And what the heck am I still glued in front of my desktop when the rest of the world are busy driving balik kampung to celebrate Raya. It’s because I am not going balik kampung this year (I will write more about it in my next entries), and that is the reason why I need the previous Raya photos so badly, so I can reminisce all those happy moments much more clearer.

Himself and I are now officially home alone in this big concrete jungle, for the first time in our Raya history in the homeland!

Dear Me – August 2008

Dear Me,

Hei you! It’s me, you, yourself. I know you might be surprised with this little note. I am too, as it’s been a while since we wrote to each other.

I know there’re so many things going on with your life now, especially in the work department. I found out from your Facebook that you are wishing for 48 hours in a day? I also know that you are trying to spend this lovely weekend doing office work so you can catch up with many more works back in office tomorrow. That is too much!

Take a deep breath now, hear me out will ya?

I know you have been given a whole new responsibility at work, that you have committed to deliver whatever necessary to Big Kahuna, however little your resources are now. And that what makes you stay late almost every other night ever since you came back from Berlin business trip. You constantly travel to various project offices i.e. Port Klang, Central KL, JB, S’pore, etc, you reach home almost 10:00pm almost every night, you wake up at 5:30am every morning to beat the traffic jam? You are so damn tired, aren’t you? And that exactly what your body blatantly admitted last Friday. Remember, your shoulder cramped so bad your left arm refused to lift up, that you had to take emergency leave just to regain yourself.

Thank God your strength and your spirit is back to normal now, and that you are trying to put things in better perspectives, better balanced between corporate and personal life, enjoying what you love about your me-time i.e. going window-shopping and watching movies with Himself on Saturday; sitting back/relax on Sunday, enjoying good fiction books, blogging and blog-hopping and actually leaving trails/comments on those good blogs you have been stalking all these while instead of being only a ghost reader.

I know, you still hate doing housework no matter how hard you wish to be a weekend domestic goddess, you are not even an inch closer to become a semi-domestic goddess my dear.

Hei, when was the last time you saw how beautiful a sunset is? (I know you drive to work everyday while the sun is rising but I bet you don’t even realise that, do you?) Remember back in the 90s’ when you and your then boyfriend used to enjoy waiting up for sunsets at various beaches/seaside in California, and how you longed to ..ok..ok.. let’s just keep them to ourself What about sunsets in Pangkor Island that you and Himself love so much! Remember how you two enjoyed frolicking in sea while watching the sunsets? Haha! Everybody thought you two were honeymooners although you two have been married for more than 10 years now.

Ok.. ok.. I digress, but the point is that you have been so held up in your work, you don’t even remember how to enjoy small little pleasures in life i.e. walking through pasar malam enjoying the aromas of sate, ikan bakar, ayam percik that the smells will sure stick to your scarf and baju kurung even after you safely reach home. What about enjoying the stroll in the hypermarket at the spice section, where you can sniff the different aromas of paprika, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, ginger, black pepper, star anise, cardamon, cloves? Do you remember when your weekends were spent trying out producing different chicken flavours depending on the spices used. God, that was ages ago right?

I can go on and on reminding you about how you probably could sail through your life journey in a more smooth and organized manner, but I will let you do that yourself now. Yup, I know this note is getting too lengthy that I had expected, so before I bore you even further, just to remind you again to relook into your life journey and make adjustment wherever possible.

Till then.

Your BFF,

Yourself.

Lesson in Life Journey – The Plastic Bowl

This story might have been written, spoken, shared, not to mention immortalized in movies, commercials, etc, a thousand times. Nonetheless, the profound message conveyed will always be inspiring as it gives us a moment to pause and reflect on what is truly important in life.

May we cherish all those in our life, even those who challenge our patience.

Happy Holiday Everyone!

—————————————————————————————————

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Rice rolled off his spoon and onto the floor. When he grasped the cup, coffee spilled on the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.

“We must do something about Grandfather,” said the son. “I’ve had enough of his spilled coffee, noisy eating, and food on the floor.” So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a plastic bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he had dropped a spoon or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with plastic scraps on the floor. He asked the child curiously, “What are you making?” Sweetly, the boy responded, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up.” The four-year-old smiled and went back to play. The words so struck the parents that they were speechless! Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done.

That evening, the husband took Grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a spoon was dropped, when coffee was spilled, or when the tablecloth was soiled.

KepadaMu Kekasih

KepadaMu Kekasih
Aku berserah
Kerana ku tahu Kau lebih mengerti
Apa yang terlukis di cermin wajahku ini
Apa yang tersirat di hati
Bersama amali

KepadaMu Kekasih
Aku bertanya
Apakah Kau akan menerimaku kembali
Atau harus menghitung lagi
Segala jasa dan bakti
Atau harus mencampakku ke sisi
Tanpa harga diri

(Chorus)
Hanya padaMu Kekasih
Aku tinggalkan
Jawapan yang belum ku temukan
Yang bakal aku nantikan
Bila malam menjemputku lena beradu

KepadaMu Kekasih
Aku serahkan
Jiwa dan raga
Jua segalanya
Apakah Kau akan menerima penyerahan ini
Apakah Kau akan menerimaku
Dalam keadaan begini