Be All You Can Be!

Are you a "role model" or a "case study"?

Joker of the Month

Believe it or not, this picture was choreographed
by our funny-gal... Miss Marsha. Joker!

Self Reflection

I am, by all means, not perfect... by 53.6 gazillion light-years away, to be exact. But, it's a relief to know that I'm not alone. But ironically, I can't help but noticing that there are some people who actually thought that they ARE perfect. More ironic, some of these people, they are just wayyy OUT of the scale that it's just impossible to plan a salvation. In short, these are the ego-centric people. A common trait for these type of people is that, they don't really practice 'self-reflection'. Instead, they adore criticising others. Other's imperfection glimmers like a diamond to them, and how they love talking about it. But as I try to understand this group of people, I notice that most of them DO NOT have good friends. Yes... they might think that they have, but the sad truth is, no of them are true friends. Which brings us to the fact that, without true friends, you can't perform "self-reflections". There's no one to criticize you. Or to correct your mistakes. Or to give feedbacks or inputs when you ask (or do not ask) for one. Do you notice that when ego-centric talks, nobody will say anything or debate the topic? The reason is mainly because, ego-centrics are emotionally-based and often talk bad of others. People keeping quiet while they talk is just a way to past time until they stop talking or leave.

Anyway, self-reflection is a sure way of improving yourself. We must all know where we stand in this world and keep improving our position. And a quick way of doing this, is to perform daily self-reflection with your best friend. Of course, by default, if you're married, your best friend is your spouse. Talk about annoying things you see, and try to understand why it happens. And of course, ask if you are as annoying as that. Your spouse will give you an honest answer. And you'll improve from there on.

One reason ego-centric drifts further away is that their ego is too big that they do not want to expose their imperfections - especially to their 'supposedly' best friend - their spouse or partner. And, really... that's just fundamentally wrong. Think about it. Anyway, in short, if you do an environmental scan and realizes that you don't have a good friend that can give you an honest answer or finds it difficult to 'open-up' to your partner or spouse, then it's time to check that "ego-meter" and step off the "ego-pedal". Worry not... nobody's perfect... and it's never too late.

Marsha's Birthday Bash Part2

CONTINUE FROM PART 1

Thanks Aisha... for the blowing the candle... hehe. Cute.

Talk about FULL HOUSE! Even the staircase is occupied!
Here's Marsha with her evening buddies.
The kids really love the goodie bags.

Thank you to everyone who came over and made Marsha's birthday a memorable one.

Marsha's Birthday Bash Part 1

Specially dedicated to Eiwa, Iris & Firman.

Marsha turned TWO in Nov 16th. So, the following weekend, on the 18th, we organized a sweet little party for her. We just invited some of our neighbours, relatives and friends from Kulim.

Marsha performing the pre-party final buy-off inspection.

Backyard buffet! This is our first time arranging the buffet table at the back. Turned out to be a very good idea. Nothing beats taking food under the coconut trees.

Knowing how Marsha loves water, the theme was "pool party".

Kids just lurrvee water.

Here's Marsha using a floatie in a 2feet deep pool.

Getting all geared-up for the cake cutting ceremony...

...feel the pressure, as Marsha get's ready to blow the candles...

In a flash!

I'm so lazy to update my blog... huaarrgghhhh! There's been so many things happening that I could hardly find time to sit down and type stuff in my blog. For the past 1-2 weeks... let's see:

- it was my b'day on the 9th October. I blew a candle on the 8th for someone's b'day, and blew another on the 10th. Nothing happened on the 9th.

- I was in back in my hometown on the 10th, 11th and 12th. Yes, I went back on weekdays, coz I had to send my maid to the airport, she's going back to Indonesia. It's her annual 1-mth break, and this time, we let her go during Raya - it's the best time to be with family. I asked her, how long is the drive from her home to the Solo airport? She said ~3hrs. We were like, wow. What rural area she must have come from. THEN! I thought, hey, wait a minute! It took ME 5 FREAKIN' HOURS to get to this KLIA airport! I'M THE SO-RURAL!

- Got M-I-L and S-I-L to stay with us for a week before the Raya weeklong holiday. They're here mainly to take care of Marsha while we go to work. That also means, I have no choice. It's Alor Setar for 1st day Raya.

- My new job is 2 light years away from what I previously do. Now I manage a Planning group. So, 3 weeks ago, before my transition, I quickly asked my admin to print my business card, bearing my previous job's title, mainly coz I wanted the word "Engineer" to be there.

- Had pot-luck party with my close friends just now. 60% attendance rate. 2 families couldn't make it. Yes, calculate that. I don't have too many close friends. But lots of food around, tho. But we were too busy chit-chatting, food was second on the agenda. The trade off from the fun-time... my maid @ bibik is NOT around. I hurt my back washing the dishes. If I had more time, I'd put a signage at the kitchen sink that reads "Bibik on Annual Leave. Please wash thy plates." Kidding, guys :-) I had a good time. Just have to find that heaty-plaster to put on my back, that's all.

- Oh, highlight of my b'day, well, post-b-day to be axact. On the 10th, my sis-in-law got me the BEST chocolate cake EVEH! She put 2 candles on it and call it my 'birthday' cake. I felt like I'm 20 again. Thank you, Kak Ida =D.

- Over the past week, I rebuilt 2 of my Radio Controlled cars. 1 was set-up for racing, and the other set-up to go sideways, or drift, as the craze is nowadays. Boy, I feel like I'm 15 again.

I better not start on Lego.

Rootcause B'gosh

8 years ago, a Libran like me, was probably asking for a piece of hell when I decided to marry my Aries wife (yes, cloud-9 really do clouds the klout).

You see, I've never been the type who reads the Astrology column during breakfast but a year ago, Madam Zodiac was forwarded into my Inbox. And to my suprise, Libra is supposed to be the EXACT opposite of Aries - which is read as: we should not even want to know each other.

The zodiacs were stressing on just how DIFFERENT Libra and Aries are that it's impossible to find a common like. Well, let the truth be known: I agree. Here, check this list out:

Iffil: Spicy food, please.
Sara: Chillies? Wanna kill me?

Iffil: Rolls on the floor over chicken crossing the road joke.
Sara: Just looks at Iffil, in disbelief.

Iffil: Needs 4 days to think of where to hang a picture.
Sara: Needs a nail, a hammer and a wall. Max - 2mins.

Yes, the zodiac is spot on for my case. But the weird thing is, even BEFORE we were married, we were 'special' friends for 6 years. And now, 8 years into our marriage, still in love with each other as we were during our Cloud-9 days.

Which prompted me to think. People usually use similarities as the plus points when searching for a life partner. In fact, so much time is spent in finding someone with the most similarities. But in actual - similarity matters not. What promises a brighter future is having the right attitude and personality.

One quick way to see a person with good attitude is; observing how a person RE-ACTS to a problem. If he's patient, forward-looking, always looking for a solution - then no mountain of difference is high enough. I'm probably just 10% of this. But I do try to be sensitive to my reaction to her preferences. And she does the same thing too - err... I think. Which leads me to think another thing: all of the world's problem is actually a result of REACTIONS. Think about it.

So, conslusion: your reaction is the make-or-break point. Therefore, the rootcause b'gosh is: the problem of the problem is not the problem but it's how you REACT to it. Note to unmarried people: find a good problem-solver as your partner... not a problem-maker.