Right reasons; Wrong reasons.

Apparently more and more married couples are splitting up. Well at least that's what they claimed in this article that I read on Sunday. I must agree. Divorce is not something unusual anymore among our society. People divorce for various reasons. Whether or not the reasons make sense is not for us to judge. But the writer (of the article) pointed out one question - Are Malaysians getting married for the wrong reason? 


I'm not sure what reasons others have for getting married, but I marry my husband for a few reasons. 

• I enjoy being with him. He always has stories to tell. There has never been a quiet moment between us.
• We don't always share the same view but we could talk about it like adults, digest and debate about it. 
• I know I could get a 5 minutes bear hug every time I came back from a bad day.
• We speak the same language and come from similar family background so, I blend in pretty easily. 
• And most importantly, he has the financial standing which I feel could finance my lifestyle and provide me with the materials. 

So, are those reasons right, or wrong reasons? No one could tell, right?


Yeah I know LOVE is one thing, but I personally feel that love alone is not enough to consider a marriage. There are so many other factors to consider before agreeing to 'sign that death warrant' - according to some people. Hey, but that's ME. If there are people who marry solely due to LOVE, then fine by me. 


So, right reasons or not, who cares? People get married for all sort of reasons. Same goes to divorce. People divorce for 1001 reasons. I look at divorce as the last resort for one's happiness. No one would go through a divorce to be more unhappy than they already are - no matter what reasons they quote. 


So, back to the article. Why even bother questioning if people are getting married for the wrong reasons? Which will eventually lead to another question - So what are the wrong reasons? I don't know. Do you?


Signing off - nmn

What a quote would do - What a smile would bring

I came across a poster that a friend posted on Facebook. It's cute, it's catchy and most of all, it's TRUE.

We sometimes take things too seriously. Get ticked off easily. Complain about everything and anything under the sun but at the same time forgetting that there are zillion of people out there who are so  much less fortunate than us. By the time we cooled off, we realized that we missed out on so many beautiful things in life - good friends, loving families, birthdays, anniversaries and the list goes on. I reckon that's the deal with life.

So, Yes, just SMILE and TAKE IT EASY unless we are dealing with life & death situations.
Love and make ourselves loved while we are at it. Treasure every moment one at a time so we'll learn from every single bit of it.

To Azmin, thank you for sharing nice things with us on Facebook. You will never know, small gestures like that would put on a big smile on someone's face.

Signing off - nmn

The fun I had & The fun I ended

I am turning a year older tomorrow. Time flies and I didn't even notice it. Not sure if that's good or bad. But looking back at what I had gone through, I must say it was not too bad... in fact not bad at all. Having had my fun times in my teen 10 - 20 years ago.... it was crazy. Sometimes I wonder where I got those energy from.  It was fun reminiscing and remembering all the good times we had when we were young, and laugh about it.

Gone are the days when you had nothing to worry about and what mattered was just fun, friends and nothing else. Went out at 11pm, party-party-party, then when this club closed, you hit for another one that was still opened until 4am and party for a little bit more before reaching home at 5am. Slept until noon.

Those times I don't remember the club being a dangerous place to be at. Clubbers those days were only there to dance, smoke, booze and have some fun with their friends. Very little involvement of drugs or illegal activities - unlike today where these kids pop E la, they pop ICE la, and I don't know what other dangerous party drugs they popped into their system. Yeah we did some naughty stuff once in a while, but it was nothing that warranted jail terms or anything close to it.

Funny that we could just dance and laugh and dance and laugh for hours and not felt tired. And the great thing was, we never took our boyfriends with us when we went clubbing. We left them behind and  our clubbing sessions were only permitted for friends and strictly friends. It was just us, the BFFs (plus Midzi, who was specially tasked to drive us and take care of us the girls). And we took care of each other.

Well, 10 years had passed. I have not partied like that for so long. Close was live bands and karaoke sessions (and we had to catch our breath like every 5 seconds) and stuff like that, and I get sleepy after 1 hour. We have other priorities and family and kids to spend our time with now. Work takes up most of our time and more often than not, we end our day at 11 pm daily. Well, I guess that's the cycle of life. Every peak must have its low. Every fun must have its ending.

Unlike 10 years ago, fun is no longer the first item in my list. But I'm glad I had my fun when I was supposed to have my fun.

Signing off - nmn

A pleasant surprise - the sweetest thought

One thing I picked up from today's event is that, I might think that work sucks, and the whole world is going against me when things go wrong at work. But little that I remember that the office is where I am also surrounded  with a bunch of warm people who go through the challenging time together with me, support me when I need the help through crisis period, laugh and share common jokes and console one another through terrible times.

Maybe it s just a simple gesture of thought, but I truly appreciate it. I have had a few surprises but today was one of the sweetest ones. I don't normally cry. My husband once said that I have a heart as hard as a stone, but I cried today, because I felt loved - and the feeling's mutual.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It only makes the process of growing older sweeter and sweeter. Love always.

Signing off - nmn

A trip down memory lane by Arif

A former colleague dropped by to say Hi to us today. Left the department almost a year ago, landed a good job in Johor and he looks happy. I had not had the opportunity to work directly with him, but from his short stint in the department, he has always been remembered as a nice-cool guy. I remembered the time when we had his farewell, everyone that spoke about him that day had nothing but ONLY good stuff to say about him. It is nice to be remembered for  thegood things. He left a mark, and it was a good one.

Which brings me to another matter that I heard today. I am not sure if it was a good thing, or otherwise. But it is always good to listen, digest and as always, give the benefit of the doubt as we do not know what the real issues are. However, if there is a lesson to learn from there, it is this.

Sometimes, we thought that we are better than others. We criticize blindly, we smirk at other people's shortcomings, we laugh at silly mistakes other people make and we always think that we are GOD. But in the process, we completely forgot to think of what others might think of us - our mannerisms, the language and tone that we used, the impressions that we gave, the image that we portrayed. Are we as great as we thought we were?

Back to Arif. There are reasons why people remember him positively. Apart from being so down to earth despite being such a knowledgeable person, he is also very soft spoken. Never heard him boasting about himself and how great he is in this and that. Never heard him belittling others for not being great at his job. Never blew his top at his staff for mistakes that they accidentally made. Never heard him criticizing others openly for any reasons at all. Overall, he gave a great impression to other people, me included.

It is not easy to be Arif. Being a normal human being, we are full of imperfections and flaws. Probably, what we can try to do is to change our mindset and to always remember that the world  doesn't just revolve around us. They are also others who are as important in the eyes of GOD.

Signing off - nmn

A small deed that starts with a small tray

I have been wondering about this for a very long time, but keep on forgetting to think seriously about it.


How come Malaysians (myself included) do not clean our own trays at McDonald's?

Clearing trays after eating is a normal practice overseas and I am pretty sure that those who studied overseas know this. Here in Malaysia, we just leave our trash on the tray and the poor boy/ girl/ even makcik (I have seen a makcik as old as a grandma) has to pick it up and clean them for us.

I used to clean my own tray a few times, long long time ago, and it felt weird when you are the only one doing it and having other patrons staring at you like... 'what the hell are you doing? this is Malaysia" Sad but true, I stopped doing it after a few attempts. 

But why is it that we are not practicing it? What is so bad about picking up our own trays and clearing them? If you're the CEO of Maxis, you would still be one after doing it. If you're the MP of Rembau, you would still have your constituency after you do it. So, there is actually  nothing degrading about cleaning your own trays. It is simple, and the bins are everywhere. So basically it should not be a problem. 

With the inflation spiking and money is no longer easy to come by, we start seeing old ladies working at McDonald's doing cleaning tasks for maybe 5 bucks an hour? Well, that's the price we pay for living in the city. Yeah I know some of us might say, 'but she is not my mother'. Yes. True. But that is still someone's mother, isn't it? 

Think about it. Isn't it sad to see an old woman cleaning your own mess while you sit there and look pretty? Yes,  I know she gets paid for it and it's her job and she has to earn her bucks, but I reckon this is not about that. This is more of our willingness to do a small deed just to lessen a small burden of someone else. 

I started handling my own tray again maybe 3 months ago after seeing a young girl dropping a tray that she was carrying while doing her cleaning duty at McDonald's. She was probably doing it for the past 3 hours and I know she was tired. It was not a very nice sight to see, so I started doing my part. I know if I deal with my own tray, she would have 1 less tray to deal with for the day. Trust me, it's easy.

Signing off - nmn

English - an eye opener

There's an article that I read maybe a couple of weeks back writing on why job applicants are not offered the jobs they applied for. Of course, the topic on how our fresh grads are too selective, their attitude, their confidence level and a-must topic on how most applicants (fresh grads or not) cannot converse well in English was also discussed.

I can't comment much on the selective, attitude and confidence level bit as I do not know what their issues are for being the way they were. Well, it could be anything, maybe the job requires the person to drive and she/ he does not own a car. Maybe that person lives too far away. Maybe she/ he has to care for their small siblings at  night when the parents go off for their night shift job somewhere. I don't know.

But I am interested to comment on the fact that some... well maybe many fresh graduates and job applicants are said to be English-handicapped. And apparently, the writer was quoted saying that most under this category are Malays. I am a Malay, so every time something is said or written about my race, I must say that I got a bit jumpy. I have no idea where the writer got his stats from, but I'm guessing it is justified.

As a Malay, I have to admit that it is possibly true, that compared to other main races in this country, Malays are a little bit left behind in English. All the Prime Ministers when they were in power were trying to close this gap, but for some reason, it just didn't work too well. Dr. Mahathir introduced learning Math & Science in English, but for some unjustified 'political' reasons, it was dropped after several years. Well, i find that....UNWISE. When he was pushing us to take 1 step forward, after a few years, we were taking 2 steps backward.

Again, I am a Malay. I grew up speaking Malay mostly, though our family also converse in English since both my parents are English-educated professionals and so do my other family members. So, basically English is not too alien in our family. I went to a normal government school where Malay is like the lingua-franca. English was only taught maybe 3 hours (max) a week. So just like other Malays, our exposure to English is not great. Yeah I know, there are people who ONLY speak English. So, English is like their first language, so I am guessing that this issue does not apply to them.

But what I do not understand is that SOME Malays just refuse to acknowledge this fact. They refuse to even try to speak. They are too shy to make mistakes in English. They stay away from English conversations. They switch channels when English programs are playing. They don't read English materials. They practically turn a blind eyes on their disability to converse in English. Worse, some of them even snap at others who speak English, saying that these people are 'berlagak'.

It breaks my heart to know that my race is being criticized for not able to speak well in English, don't read enough, don't get paid enough, missed a  promotion, have low self confidence, cannot write proper memo in English, cannot draft a simple email in English, cannot get jobs in MNCs and even GLCs and the list just won't end.

But it is even more heartbreaking to know that some of us who are proficient in the language is not doing anything to help improve the level of our race's English proficiency. Worse, if we are only good at pointing, laughing and smirking at other people's flaws and mistakes than help correcting their mistakes. Just like the concept of giving and receiving, though receiving feels so damn good, but giving makes you a better person, and makes you have a better heart.

Signing off - nmn

Gifts & Flaws - They ain't all that bad

My dear husband.... well let me give some (selected) brief introduction about this man I marry. He is very very very opinionated. He can debate with me, or anyone about anything and everything that he feels strongly about. He has a lot of angst in him. He is super choosy about food (a total opposite of me), he is open minded, very westernized, has a mind of his own, hates my cooking (though he never really admits it, but he hardly eats it too), cannot stand the house being messy (so he drags me into doing spring cleaning every week) and loves criticizing the government (for all the reasons he can think of). In a nutshell, he can be quite a tenuk sometimes, but I love him. I love him to bits because we complement and compliment each other. Plus, he's a super dad to my son and he helps out with the house work and will never let me do things on my own. We are quite an opposite character - but for some crazy reasons, we could still sleep in one bed without killing one another. Ok that's not all I want to blog about. Lets continue from where I first started.

A few days ago, my husband confidently told me THIS during one of our normal conversations - How a wife takes care of her husband is by taking care of his tummy (as in what he eats/ from her cooking). I almost choked. I mean hearing that from my husband who is a strong believer of gender equality, not very Malay at heart and who is against infidelity (like yeah right), is like.... hearing it from another person. I was like... " Who the heck are you? Where is my husband? Why are you saying all this stuff that I never heard you said?"

But then it got me thinking? Is it true? I mean - is it true that cooking for your spouse plays an important role in marriage? I pack food from the office cafeteria almost everyday. I hardly cook. Even if I do, it tastes weird and amateurish.  I have been married more than 6 years and cooking is not one of those in my priority list because I'm not good at it, and I know that he knew this since we were courting. So I know for a fact that he did not marry me for my cooking skills.

I know some friends who cook for their family everyday. It's like their daily routine. And I know some friends whom their husbands expect to eat home-cooked food, so they go home after work, and cook. I reckon it is in a way a good practice. It's not that if you cook, it would make you less classy or less hip or anything like that. I think a career woman, who takes an effort to cook for dinner or lunch is extraordinary. And if what my husband was saying is indeed true, I guess the wives (who cook for their hubbies) are doing an excellent effort for the happiness of their marriage and family. I do not want to dwell on other possibilities and situations which may still arise even if the wives cook kambing panggang, or nasi bukhara or what ever. That would need to be under a different topic. But for me, whatever the wives do, either they cook, or they sew, or they clean or go to work for that matter, I am sure all that are meant for the happiness of their families. No doubt about that.

The person we marry have great gifts as well as great flaws... and we marry them for that. I marry my husband for the gifts that he has in him and I am accepting his flaws in the process. And I know he too is accepting me the same way I do about him.

Signing off - nmn

Is it really necessary to be rude? (Part 2)

I have been really really occupied this past few weeks. Just when I thought my weekend was starting, I suddenly had one long list of "To-Do" to be done during the weekend. Then came Monday when the ball started rolling again - this time with a different ball game, a different drama, a different roller-coaster . So it's a cycle. So, those are my excuses for not updating the blog. Not that I have lost interest, but my life has been pretty hectic lately. Plus, it's not that I have such a colorful life like a rock star or something where every step is to blog about. I am just a plain Jane remember?

A couple of postings before, I remember blogging about how UNCOOL it is to be RUDE. And the topic surfaced again today. Me and a few colleagues were talking about it (more like email-gossiping) about how rudely another person was behaving in a session with another group of colleagues. Well, as that was not the first time similar incident took place, so we were pretty ready for it. After all, this person's rude behavior  has already been the talk of the town. 

But the question is - WHY? Why is it that 'si polan' itu needs to behave in such a way? Can't a strong message be delivered in a more docile manner? Well these are some of the questions to be pondered which require your little attention:

1. Do you know that other people from your side thought that it was utterly uncool to see you treating those people like that? Not only that we feel sorry for those people, but we smirk negatively in our heart to see you clowning yourself like that. 
2. Do you know that your behavior reflects badly on your other team members (who are mostly bersopan & pemalu as how Mas put it) as well as your ORGANISATION?  
3. And do you know that people do not expect you to  behave like that since you are holding such a high position in this organisation? 
4. Do you know that you had successfully reflect yourself negatively, not just by those people that you were rude at, but also to your other colleagues?
5. Do you realise that your behavior will only make people wonder how your parents brought you up?
6. Lastly, do you even remember that you are dealing with another group of human being, who have feelings and do not appreciate to be humiliated in front of 10 other people? 
7. Does your thick brain (yang kononnya berpelajaran tinggi itu) ever thought about that? Where is your moral standing?
8. DO YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED LIKE THAT? 

I only have one thing and one thing only to learn from all these. No matter how good and outstanding you are, how pretty you are and how "I-know-all" you are - you will not deserve the respect that you should deserve if your moral value is under your feet - and that include being disrespectful to another person/s. 

Signing off - nmn

How was your first day?

I guess everyone will face or had faced this at some point in their life. Be it the first day at school, the first day at your new job, first day entering uni etc. So, let's start again... how was your first day at your new job? As i mentioned in my first few entries, I have not worked at that many places, so I could only speak for 3 places. And my best first day was back during my first job at a merchant bank. I was fresh, enthusiastic, very driven. People at the office was warm, welcoming, friendly... so I felt welcome. I felt motivated.

That was 10 years ago. So it got me thinking.... did I welcome a newcomer like how I was welcomed on my first day back then? If people either naturally, voluntarily or maybe half-heartedly made me feel welcome, then why didn't I do the same? They deserve to be welcomed just like how I would like to be welcomed if I were to join a new place. It does not take too much trouble to actually be hospitable, courteous (as what Suz put it) and friendly just to make a person feel good about joining you and be your co-worker. After all, we will be seeing each other's face on a daily basis for god knows how long.

Being a human being, there are times when we act so selfishly, not knowing that it could leave a mark forever. The things that we did or did not do, will make a permanent impression that would be remembered for a long time. So why choose to be remembered for the wrong reasons when you can choose to be remembered positively?

Who knows, I too will be going through maybe one or two more first days. And the last thing I want is that my presence is not welcomed by the people in the new office. I don't think I will like that. Afterall, I always thought that " Dunia ni bulat, you will never know when you are going to be at the bottom end. And you will never know who you will bump into again".

Singing off - nmn

Sexual Harassment

Over dinner tonight, my husband told me that a person  he knows is facing a 2 weeks suspension period for sexual harassment allegation. He couldn't believe it as he claims that that person has no potential of doing such thing. That person, according to him is soft spoken, quite old, quite pious and basically does not look like those potentially capable of doing anything close to sexual harassment. No, no no. It cannot be true, according to my dear husband. 

I, being the person who only listened to this could only shake my head. What can I say, right? I am not too well versed about what sexual harassment really entails, so I didn't dare say much. My husband, being very opinionated will start a debate about this if I am not careful, just like always. 

So I googled sexual harassment, and I found some shocking  information on what constitutes sexual harassment. Very wide. Very specific. You will be surprised if you see the list. If I were a guy or even a lady, I shall be very very careful of what I say or do to the other opposite sex, because it could be a form of sexual harassment. Even hanging around a person or staring at another person can constitute sexual harassment. And check this out, calling a person 'babe' or 'doll'or 'hun' or 'sayang' also translate to sexual harassment. Darn it, I sometimes call my male friends 'babe'. Apparently, in Japan (according to a friend, Manabu), asking a female colleague to make coffee for you could also translate to sexual harassment. My god. I don't know this. 

But it is actually important for not only ladies, but also the guys to know about this. I know, in Malaysia sexual harassment is not widely publicised or widely spoken about as in the western countries, where according to my husband are widely reported. Maybe being Asians, anything related to sex, sexual or stuff like that are considered taboo and should not be made known to public.  But I personally feel that if someone feels that they are a victim of sexual harassment, they should come forward, to the correct channel of course so the situation can be assessed accordingly and noone is unfairly victimised. 

From now on, I need to be extra careful of my actions and of my words. You'll never know..... it could be considered 'unwelcome'. 

Signing off - nmn

Is it really necessary to be rude?

I am the type that always and try to give a person the benefit of the doubt before concluding or making judgement on a person about anything. I always feel that before we know what the real issues are, that whoever needs to be given a break.

But for some reason, being rude is out of the list. When a person is rude, I can't think of any reason to give the person that benefit of that doubt. What is it to be doubted about when you are rude to another person? What reasons do you have to be rude? None actually.

I encountered an ugly situation at a fast food restaurant when a considerably young couple shouted and threw foul languages at the poor counter guy. He used words like bodoh, tak tau guna otak, that four letter word and stuff like that. I find that very rude. I find that uncivilised and it achieved nothing but only self-downgrade to your own self. Please tell me, what could be so bad and what could be so wrong that you need to use those words just because that person didn't give the drumsticks that you ordered or gave you one coleslaw instead of two. And did it give you some kind of self satisfaction after you said all those words to the poor guy? I don't think so.

I encountered many hateful postings and nasty personal remarks on facebook which sounded so rude just because they are angry, just because someone pissed them off, just because their favorite football team lost that night, just because the government didn't allow street protest and so on and so forth. The question is, are those rude remarks really necessary? Apart from your friends (that you yourself added) knowing that you are actually a rude person (even if your profile picture doesn't translate that about you), you are just opening the opportunity for people to judge your upbringing.

So please tell me, is it fair for your parents that people (or maybe strangers) are questioning your upbringing just because you decided to be rude.

Signing off - nmn