dailyramblings101

On Feb 1st each year, those who work or study in the Federal Territory (FT) – or Wilayah Persekutuan (WP) in Malay - of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya will enjoy a day off. It is especially nice this year as it falls on Sunday, which makes Monday a holiday for us. Another long weekend for us, after enjoying the Chinese New Year holiday.

Some information on Federal Territory:

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and is the nation’s largest city. Kuala Lumpur (Kuala Lumpur literally means muddy confluence in Malay) was ceded by the state of Selangor to the federal government on Feb 14, 1974.

Labuan, the main island in the FT. Labuan (the name Labuan derives from the Malay word labuhan meaning anchorage) was proclaimed a Federal Territory of Malaysia on Apr 16, 1984. Labuan was established as an International Offshore Financial Centre in October 1990.

Putrajaya became the third Federal Territory on Feb 1, 2001. Putrajaya is the new federal administrative centre of Malaysia. Putrajaya is named after Malaysia’s first Prime Minister: Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra.

To all FT citizens, enjoy your holiday!

My sister is getting married in December.

Even though both she and her boyfriend have savings, she is still quite worried about the wedding expenses. Mom had wanted a certain amount of $$$ for the kenduri (wedding reception) and all of us felt that it is quite steep. I mean, for the amount of money she’s asking, we can actually hire a caterer to do the job of cooking or have the wedding in a big city like KL instead of in our hometown!

With 10 months to go before the wedding, we siblings are  already at loggerheads with Mom. She wanted a grand wedding for her daughters but unfortunately we are to ones who will have to bear the cost! (Both me & hubby spent 3 years tightening our belt to save for our wedding)

I am afraid for Mom it is a case of comparing with her friends’ children. She wanted to be bigger and better. We have to take her feelings into account, as she is after all, our Mom. For Malay, our parents’ blessing for our choices in life and in this case, the wedding.

I told little sis to not be swayed into wanting everything full of grandeur for her wedding, a simple yet meaningful wedding will be nice. What matters is that she’ll have a good memory of her wedding day and not wedding debt. She will need her savings to set up a new home afterwards and she has to take that into account.

But of course, Mom will say that she won’t know where to put her face if any of her daughters is to have a small wedding!

Well, we’ll see what happens! I hope little sis doesn’t get too stressed out. Heck, even I have stress thinking about her coming wedding. LOL

Maybe I’ll put up a post about Malay wedding culture here. Need to do some research first.

OK, got my merit bonus yesterday. A nice surprise because I wasn’t expecting this bonus after getting the December bonus as the economy is not exactly in great shape now.

But as I am rejoicing for receiving some extra $$$, dear Hubby won’t be getting his 5-6 figure bonus this year. Gasp! Lucky for him (and for us, he never counted his year-end bonus in our budget so we don’t feel much dent in our joint expenses but nonetheless….)

Not that I can splurge that much with it because it just so happen that I managed to “drown” my Sony camera during our family outing to a waterfall during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday. Sob sob I now need to find a new camera. As Hubby preferred a small camera (like our demised Sony T7 camera) we’ll probably buy a Sony Skinny T camera (and I want a new handphone too! Nothing fancy but I want to be able to be connected to the internet and my current, old-fashioned, outdated handphone can’t do that) There goes my bonus money….

At least I won’t be touching our savings to buy those two items.

Easy come, easy go. Bye bye bonus. LOL

We’re back from my hometown in Raub, Pahang. It was just a short drive from Kuala Lumpur (or KL), about 1.5 hours if the road is clear.

As we are Muslim Malay, we don’t celebrate the Chinese New Year but it is a Public Holiday and we do somewhat join the festivities with friends and colleagues. That’s the beauty of a multi-cultural nation. We get plenty of festivals to celebrate each year!

While I wrote about enjoying the Chinese New Year Holiday, I want to wish a belated Happy Ponggal to all Hindu readers.

What is Ponggal? Ponggal is the only festival of Hindu that follows a solar calendar and is celebrated on the fourteenth of January every year. Ponggal is a “thanks giving” festival for a good harvest. The main feature of this festival is the boiling of milk in a clay pot until it overflows when the family members gathered round the pot shout, “Ponggal Oh Ponggal” and add rice to it. In tamil Ponggal means boiling and overflowing.

Ponggal however is not one of Malaysia’s Public Holiday but my Indian friends will take a day off to celebrate the day.

January 2009 is sure a busy year for celebration - we have the New Year,Ponggal and Chinese New Year all lumped into one month. Cool! Awal Muharram is also celebrated quite near to the New Year because it fell in Dec 29, 2008. So many holidays…

To all Chinese around the world, Happy Niu (Ox) Year! Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year. May your fortunes grow in the New Year and always, and may you have success in all your endeavors.

We’ll be heading off to my hometown early morning tomorrow even though we’re not celebrating the New Year. The Chinese New Year is a 2-day public holiday in Malaysia and this year it falls on Monday and Tuesday which gives a long weekend to enjoy.

For those going back to your hometown, have a safe trip home. Those who drive, drive carefully. For those who’ll be in KL during the holiday, enjoy the jam free road for a while!

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le.

At some point in our lives, we will mutter these three words to someone. And someone will say them to us. Most of the time, I’d be glad to help out and go out of my way those who ask because I know I’d be saying out the same words some day, asking for help.

But what if the person who ask either:
barely knows you and didn’t even have the grace to properly call you (I am Lina by the way, not Linda) and expects you to jump on their bidding without so much of a thank you
or
friends or relatives who only call you once in a blue moon?

Hubby complains that I’m too nice for these people who barely know me. Sometimes, I do the favours grudgingly because I hate people calling me and pretending to ask about me and family 10 times a day when they actually really wanted to know whether I can help them or not!

So far, it had been close to three weeks we imposed ourselves and make my FIL’s house as a weekday base. Things went pretty smoothly so far and FIL even waited for Son when his school bus arrives daily.

So smooth that now, Son refused to go to his Nanny’s house. He was taken care by his Nanny when we are working (whom we call Mak affectionately which is a Malay word for Mother) since he was one year old. We didn’t make any arrangement to stop sending him to her since we wanted to be quite settled before making any decision but Son beats us to it. He told us that he wanted to stay at Grandad’s house after school.

So, current arrangement is: Grandad will wait for his school bus to arrive back at 1.30pm, eats lunch, send Son to his Religious School and pick him up at 5pm then Son will have time to play with his Pak Ngah (his Uncle who is Hubby’s older brother) and wait for us to come home.

I reminded Son not to forget his Mak (who lives 4 floor above FIL’s house) and I do stress to him that we need to visit her once in a while. After all, his Mak was the one who took care of him for 5 years, potty trained him, fed him and love him.

I hate chores. Always have and always will. My mom started me on chores at a very early age. I even hand wash the whole household basin load of laundry when I was just 9 or 10 years old. (At that time, mom didn’t trust washing machine. She was a bit old fashioned. My brother had the privilege of helping me hang all those clothes to dry and watering mom’s flowers. I f you think that was easy, he (or sometimes me) had to lug bucketful of water a few meters just to water those blasted plants. Did we enjoy those chores? Heck, no! But I suppose it built character. And did get me through 5 years of boarding school where you had to wash your own clothes! LOL

Mom also put me in charge of our vegetable patch. If you think it just meant watering and pruning - you are way off. I had to start from scratch which meant clearing the patch of land and everything. I don’t have soft hands when growing up, my hands are coarse and hard from all the work. But I love gardening. Don’t have the opportunity to divulge in them now and even though I can grow vegetables fine; I can’t grow a flowering plant to save my life!

Now, hubby help out doing the laundry. I haven’t done laundry in ages and only did them when he is outstation which lucky for me, is not that often. I did the ironing, though. When cleaning our house, I have the privilege of dusting and vacuuming and hubby did the mopping. We are equal opportunities couple. LOL But washing the dishes almost always fall on me! Haven’t started Son on doing chores yet, but he needs to clear away his own toys or I’ll just vacuum his smaller toys! Yes, I am EVIL! Muahaha!!!!!

What I hate to do most is ironing. “Lucky” for me, now that son is schooling, I have more clothes to iron, his primary school uniforms and his religious school uniforms. Ugh! Imagine all those hours bonding with my iron and ironing board. I know it’ll be easier to just send them over to the nearby laundry shop to do the chores, but I am way fussy about this and would rather do it myself even if I moan about it incessantly.

Yeay! I am really excited for the arrival of the Chinese New Year Holiday! A long weekend ahead and we’ll be heading off to my hometown for a couple of days. Wohoo!

Jan 26th and 27th are public holiday in Malaysia so we’ll have a couple of days off and coupled that with Saturday and Sunday, there’s four days off for both me & hubby. For Son, apart from having to attend class on Saturday (Jan 24th), he’ll have a week off. Nice.

For some lucky people who are able to take leave on Jan 28 - Jan 30, they’ll have an even longer week off especially if they work in the Federal Territory (FT). FT’s day falls on Feb 1(on a Sunday this year) so for us working in FT, we’ll have another day off on Monday, Feb 2 too! Isn’t that awesome?

We would’ve slept in our home yesterday in our old but comfy bed and in our cool and quiet bedroom, but Son needs to attend school today so we only came home today after his school ended.

It’s a replacement school day for the coming Chinese New Year Holidays for two Saturdays, today being one of them. Chinese New Year Holidays officially falls on Jan 26 and 27 (Monday and Tuesday), and schools will have Jan 28 (Wednesday) off to. Schools have the options to declare Jan 29 - 30 as “Cuti Peristiwa” (which I think translates as Events/Festivities Holidays) but needs to replace these two days on Saturdays. The next replacement school day will be on Jan 24. Then  we’ll be off to our hometown for the holidays!

 It sure is nice to be in our own home and being able to wear shorts at home. I refrained from wearing one at FIL’s house. Nice not to share the bathroom, using my own bathroom and taking my time in it too (and sure is nice to be comfortable enough to fart unabashedly!) LOL

Looking forward to a quiet day at home till tomorrow!