Touch My Body ...

Bila dah petang sikit dah dekat2 buka puasa, badan mesti letih and mata pun malas nak buka so I check lah my Facebook semalam nak tau wat my friends were doing. One of my senior during high school posted this video and terus fresh bijik mata ... hehehe

One of the comments in YouTube said "I LOVE THIS... not to make fun of him but to make fun of mariah carey because when i hear the song this is exactly what i hear..."

Oh yes ... me too.

Dendang Perantau ... (Part 1)

Ter"inspired" pulak nak kongsi about Ramadan after reading Boo-licious entry about Bazar Ramadan. Biasalah setiap kali tiba Ramadan mesti I yang paling sibuk2 walaupun bukan wajib puasa pun. Perhaps dah banyak sangat bergaul dengan orang Melayu and biasa dengan their religious belief, cultural and lifestyle.

Percaya atau tidak, other than Season Greetings throughout December, the fasting month of Ramadan is another month that I have been anticipating. Personally, I seldom observe the fasting month of Lent in Christian Calender since it felt akward doing it alone. So it's fun to be able to practice the fasting rituals with friends though I had to celebrate Easter and Good Friday first before I start fasting hehehe.

Another reason I love Ramadan is because of Bazar Ramadan in Klang Valley are awesome. You can find food or delicacies from all over Malaysia (and some part of the world) to satisfy your taste buds. Nevertheless, after many many years merantau from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu then Kuala Lumpur and sometimes in Penang and in 2006 involved in a big project in Alor Setar (in the month of Ramadan pulak tu) I started to develop certain craving on certain local delicacies that could only be found in certain areas or specialties of certain restaurants or best made by certain "chef" to the extend that last 2 years I balik KK during the month of Ramadan. This year I am returning to Kuching and now am formulating good reason to do site visit to Alor Setar (see lah).

For this entry I want to share about bukak puasa in Sabah. I was in KK somewhere in 1995-2000, so i developed certain liking for Bakso Tamu Inanam or Sup Tulang/Daging at Restoran Taufik, also in Inanam. Itu if I bukak puasa with Cikgu Suhaila ... I really love the meatball soup (we called it "bulat-bulat") which sometimes I ordered to complement the simple Nasi Goreng Ayam version which can be found at some of the makeshift stalls. Anijah and myself did stumble upon a stall selling very nice bakso at the flea market, opposite Pertama Shopping Complex. It was raining and we were both cold that sipping the hot broth was really heaven! Anyway, the one we had at Restoran Ayam Penyet at The Curve .... hampeh sekali!

Anyway, that year, upon arrival in KK Airport I told my friend Suaddi that I wanted to eat at Restoran Seri Sempelang. In KK, this is (or was) a very famous restaurant other than Seri Keningau. Sampai boleh bukak cawangan lagi. Both Suhaila and myself so love the Nasi Goreng ... yummy sekali. However, dulu kan student, so bab-bab makan nie terpaksa control. Cuma I was quite disappointed that year, they no longer offer buffet spread like dulu-dulu. Terbayang-bayang di mata all the seafood selections - crab, prawn, fish ... KK kan. Tak lupa, mesti beli juga cakoi, murtabak telur and pecal at the Tamu Sembulan, which was just behind the restaurant.

Suhaila, ingat tak masa kita matriks ... bersemangat sekali ko nak pergi Sembulan. Ni semata-mata nak tengok Mr. Baby Face. Apa dah jadi dengan dia rasanya. Teringat masa aku ikut kau balik Tawau masa 1st atau 2nd year, eee ... aku jadi tukang buat kek lapis Sarawak. Lawak sekali tgk u ol tak sabar masa aku kukus "my masterpiece" kat rumah Aunty Pong hehehe. I so miss Nyanya punya buras and lauk pauk berkonsepkan Jagis (Jawa Bugis Fusion) hehehe

Anyway .. dah lama sangat tak balik KK sampai I dah tak ingat nama-nama makanan. Tgk lah next year kalau I tak jadi kawin pada bulan Disember .... opppsss ... Suhaila, jom jumpa Suna and bukak puasa di KK?

The "Potong" Story

Tomorrow is the the starting of Ramadhan so better tell this potong story today or else penulis blog nie hilang pahala bulan puasa.

It all started on a fateful day (err should I start with once upon a time) when I received a call from a very good friend of mine who is a Chinese from Terengganu. He is also one of the senior officers here in Jabatan Perumahan Negara, whom I always joked with during meetings. Normally when he called me, he usually will shout my name in excitement like "Jaime!"

But dunno why that day he put on his most Malayish slang and instead bagi salam to me on the phone. So I pun terkejut lah ... Haji mana lah call I pagi-pagi buta.

"Errr ... sapa nie?"

"Woi tak jawab salam berdosa weii"

"Huh?" serba salah pulak nak jawab salam. Actually, I almost contemplated answering in this following manner:
(a) "Ya ... lu cali sapa?" or
(b) "Excuse me, I don't understand Malay, do you mind speaking in English?"

Tanpa mengecikkan hati mana-mana pihak, I jawab dengan penuh sopan santun ketimuran, "Encik salah nombor kot? Encik sebenarnya nak cakap dengan sapa?"

Then I heard this guy laughing on the other line ... "Woi Jaime ... nie XXX lah."

"Wah gila lah lu ... I thought Haji mana called me just now" I scolded him.

Then he said, " Hehehe ... saya sudah POTONG maa"

... and that's how our POTONG SAGA started.

So later that afternoon, we attended a meeting together and as usual decided to sit beside each other. The meeting at first was very dry when everyone had to crack their brains giving opinion or "pasang kipas" on our KSU slide presentation to Tan Sri KSN. Then suddenly the meeting turned jovial with everyone throwing jokes at each other. Paham2 sahaja lah when members of the meeting are mostly men with "mid 40's crisis" ... banyak lah jokes yang "double meaning".

Then suddenly one of the bosses said "Ok Miss YYY, slide 1 kita potong. Slide 2 pun kita potong, slide 5 kita potong and slide Mr XXX no 7 ... kita kasi POTONG sama dia"

Apalagi I sebelah Mr XXX pun terus pecah ketawa sampai sakit buah pinggang.

My boss who happened to be in the same meeting, looked at me curiosly ... huhuhu

" Aiii Jaime, tau ke apa yang nak kena POTONG tu?" he said sambil tersengih2. Of course sure lah akak ketawa lagi sampai nak pengsan.

Mr XXX who was sitting next to me cepat-cepat tutup mulut I sambil cakap "Don't tell ar, don't tell ar ..." Makin lah orang curious tgk kami.

Anyway, I finally said "Tanya sama XXX la , apa sudah POTONG. Saya mana tau!"

The End.

BEWARE: The Celcom Scam

This is a very important message to all CELCOM users!!!!

We often heard or came accross of scams involving telco users receiving calls informing them winning a contest and asked them to go to the nearest Maybank ATM or give details on Maybank2U account.

Never in my wildest imagination that I am in the statistics ... tapi di kalangan yang tak tertipu!

Well guess what ... I just received that call minutes ago. And kebetulan dalam banyak-banyak hari ... this is also a day I am in my "CSI mode" investigating a developer tipu cop our department and luckily ... cuma I dengan beberapa orang saja yang tau bila kita tukar cop Bahagian. Opps melencong pulak ...

Firstly, I heran ... the caller ID displayed "Withheld" and dia bagi salam. Katanya he is Haji somebody lah from Menara Celcom. Then I asked "ya, ni berkenaan apa nie?" So he explained that his company just received information from Menara Celcom that my simcard just won third prize in Ulang Tahun Celcom bernilai RM 5000.00.

Wow ... kachinggg ... kachinggg ....

Then mcm orang bodo, perhaps terkejut atau seronok GILA dapat panggilan menang peraduan (yelaa ... i tak pernah menang contest) I asked him again ... "I menang apa?"

Dia pun explain lah sekali lagi mcm panjang lebar macam public speaking PTK3 ... tapi I dah mula rasa tak sedap hati. Sebab utama ialah ... gaya bahasa (his slang )... cara dia cakap langsung tell me he is not Malaysian (even if a Chinese say "potong" I dah tau sama ada China mali atau Ipoh Mali) ... it's a cross antara Indonesian, Bangla, Indian and Malay. His main telo like Indonesian but his roll his tongue like Indian on certain pronunciation ... And certain words if we listened closely sounded a bit like Sabahan .... Pilak kah?

And I tested him "OK since u dari Celcom ... cuba bagi tahu saya nombor ni didaftarkan atas nama siapa?"

Boleh ... dia macam angin sikit, " Cik, saya ni cuma dapat nombor telefon cik dari Menara Celcom, mereka suruh kami call cik untuk bagi tau itu duit tinggal tunggu nak ambil saja".

Hmm ..."Boleh saya tahu bagaimana saya boleh verify maklumat ini? I nak pengesahan dulu yang saya dapat no. 3 peraduan nie"

"Cik, cik jangan susah hati. Ini betul punya. Tinggal Cik nak ambik duit sahaja. Cik ada tak akaun Maybank?"

"Takde"

"Cik pakai akaun apa"

"BSN" (huhuhu ... I pernah dicemuh oleh rakan2 sePTD kerana masih pakai akaun sekolah menengah)

"Cik ada tak kawan-kawan yang pakai akaun Maybank. Apa mereka perlu buat hanya pergi ke ATM Maybank saja dan nanti duit akan dimasukkan di situ"

Hmmm .... then I remembered reading a forwarded email from a friend about receiving a scam call via Internet or sattelite and the caller will ask the ATM owner to go to the nearest ATM and they will copy the information via your phone or sattelite or something ... can't remember.

I told him, "Can you give me your name and phone number. Saya akan hubungi you balik sebaik sahaja I verify nie dengan CELCOM. Kalau boleh, you bagi I surat pengesahan I menang peraduan nie"

Boleh ... terus angin member.

"Macam ni lah Cik. Saya cuma disuruh untuk bagi duit kat Cik saja. Tak payah bagi nombor akaun atau PIN number. You cuma pergi ke mesin ATM saja. Duit RM 5000.00 dah standby masuk akaun cik".

"No, saya nak juga verify dengan Celcom. U call me back in 20 minutes. I nak call Celcom dulu. Apa nama u tadi?"

Hmm ... he gave me his name as Haji Rosdi dari Call Centre Celcom at Level 2 Jalan Raja Muda. I think dia nie pun still want to try his luck.

Shortly after he hung up, I called CELCOM HQ to verify the information and was informed that the scam was QUIET for a while and now apparently it has resurface. Huhuhu ... nasiblah mata I rabun so tak nampak sangat simbol RM or $$$.

Later I told Mr Energy Saving about the incident and you know what his advice to me?

"Cik Jaime, baik Cik Jaime claim hadiah Magnum 4D cik Jaime yang RM 5.00 tu"

Hehehe ... oppsss ...

15Malaysia - Potong Saga

I guess if I am very good with the movie editting (...one day), this will be my style of movie making and prefered genre. Enjoy!

Powerlifting

Last Sunday, I got a call from my dad, reminded me to come for the Powerlifting event of 5th ASEAN PARA Games, held at the Putra Stadium Bukit Jalil. Honestly, any form of physical activities or sports are no longer my cup of tea for the last 10 years. As I had mentioned, few times in this blog, that of late I have been exploring the creative and artistic side of me - be it in the form of performing arts, creative writings and photography. Bak kata Cik Ida ..."very the cultured gitew"

Tapi demi menjaga hati ayahanda "terchenta", terpaksalah gagahkan diri bawak kete ke Bukit Jalil. Sebenarnya I nak spent my Sunday to do some study on photography- like the theories, terms and exploring my DSLR kit lense as advised by my ex-uni mate few nights before. He uploaded some mind blowing photos taken on his macro lens on Facebook. Plus I belum decide on my subjects or whether I want to master in landscapes, potraits, events or macro.

Anyway, I menyesal tak bawak my DSLR camera as I thought that it would not be that interesting. Furthermore, I just dropped by to see my dad at work. Luckily I brought my IX's with me so dapatlah juga snapped some great pics and recorded some clips. Plus, I met our former First Lady at the arena ... in real life she's a very elegant woman! So time prize giving tu, nak jugak menyibuk kat depan dengan reporters around the globe with DSLRs yang canggih2 walaupun hanya berbekalkan dengan kamera compact semata2 nak ambik gambar Datin Seri Jean Abdullah.

Later, when the event was over, my dad introduced me to all his friends - most of whom I know since small - and chatted with some of the participants. I noticed that most of the winners are from countries like Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. Dad said participants from these countries trained hard to be here unlike our Malaysian lifters. I had to say that their strength were astounding. Do you know that they could lift up to 4 times their body weight? I nak angkat groceries yang 2-3 kg tu pun dah macam tak larat hehehe.

Balik tu cepat-cepat i edit the clips ... mana tau one day I boleh ganti Yasmin Ahmad.

A WEEK IN PARADISE ...

Life has been so hectic, stressful and somewhat frustating that after a session of consolation with Kak Meli I realised that I badly need some spiritual switch-up. Coincidently, my feng shui reading for the month of August has also indicated that this month is a good month for a personal and spiritual development.

Thus for the last few nights I have been reading a devotional book written by Joel Osteen. After reading a few devotional stories from the book which then followed by a prayer session, I felt somewhat light-headed and my spiritual self slowly re-energised. So for those who are on Facebook, you might noticed that I have been quite active lately either updating my status, finding out what friends are doing or commenting on some old memorable pictures plus chatting and finding out from friends who are furthering their studies abroad or locally - just to motivate myself to do the same.


Admittedly, it is not right to chat on Facebook during office hours. However, unlike other public chatroom, in Facebook, you chat among your friends and social circles. And trust me, in current situation, especially now with Meli not there to lecture or update me, I badly need my friends' supports, opinions, jokes and latest news update so that I would be able to rise above obstacles. Sometimes it can be pretty lonely as we climbed higher on the career step ladder. If my KSU know how to use the Facebook, I am sure he will create an account.

There is also another reason why I love to check my Facebook at every opportunity. It is because of this picture taken during our conventional warfare training in Paradise Camp, Kota Belud between 1998-1999. Everytime I saw this picture, there will definitely be new memory to laugh about.

To Suna, Syariah and Suhaila, aku rasa time kita ambik gambar nie ada mau 5 hari bah kan kita ndak ada mandi. But that time, sebab kita semua pun letih menggali kubu sehari semalam none even bother the smell, the dirt, the lumpur and as seen in this picture ada siap peluk2 lagi.

And kebetulan time tu, it was like sekejap hujan and sekejap panas kat Kota Belud. Oh Tuhan, imagine, that night, sleeping guna poncho under a very heavy rain and the rocky soil served as our bed. It was a miracle that I managed to get a few winks.

I still remember time kita kena gali kubu untuk pertahanan. Kan time tuh group RAMD pun buat eksesais yang sama. Tapi dia orang dah siap pilih kawasan bawah bukit di mana tanahnya lembut whereas kita kat atas bukit yang tanahnya berbatu-batu. It only took them 2 hours to siap their kubu and it took us 24 hours to siap ours hehehe. Paling aku sakit hati, aku dengan Kho Ban Huong kena kubu mortar yang paling besar itu. Kho asyik tetido masa gali kubu. It was like at certain time me and Kho were so in full blast in completing our kubu and then suddenly si Kho tiba2 static. Ya tuhan, tetido rupanya ... last2 azizani yang tolong aku siapkan kubu.

Yee Phin and Krishnan yang kena buat kubu untuk machine gun which is a few feet below ours pun make me laugh like hell. Bersungguh bah si Yee Phin gali but setiap kali cangkul dicabut mesti keluar batu sebesar bola bowling hahahaha. Michelle, small she may look, tapi dia punya energy is 10 times of Kho. Habis dia gali kubu, dia tido bawah poncho, sekali pandang macam beg mayat. Adakah si Heng mau masuk dia dalam lubang kubu(r) hehehe

Then I think there was a night that kita jadi sentri and tiba-tiba somebody saw ada pokok bergegar dan bergoyang-goyang. Rupa-rupanya it was Razman who was also on duty for other company yang menggigil kesejukan.

Jangan lupa Cikgu Suhaila, kisah kita dengan Minah Kelate sorang tu. Aku kan duty medic so dia kan reported as casualty hehehe. Tapi they way aku tgk dia aku rasa sakit dia nie bukan sebab demam atau asthma tapi menahan sakit nak buang air besar selama I think more than 2 days? Ye lah macam kita dua, asal ada air untuk cebok, masuk jak dalam hutan dan fuhhhh lega. Aku memang tak boleh lupa kenangan kita meneman dia buang sisa pepejal nun jauh ke dalam hutan, jauh daripada pandangan kasar skot-skot kita. Walaupun dia masuk jauh ke dalam hutan to do her business masih kedengaran jelas bah bunyi-bunyi dia buang angin secara bertubi-tubi sampai ko bilang ... "wah, lama bah dia sudah menahan tuh Jaime"

Aduh... tak tahan aku ketawa sambil-sambil aku mengarang nie. Pardon the change in the different usage of slang. Sometimes, there are stories that are best told in Sabah dialect.

Disebabkan 5 hari tak mandi and disebabkan cuaca sekejap panas dan sekejap hujan, maka bermulalah episod menggaru-garu di kalangan kita. Aku rasa tak kira apa kita buat, mesti tangan kita akan menggaru. Tido menggaru, berbincang menggaru, buat serangan pun sempat menggaru, marching pengunduran menggaru, time baris menggaru hahahaha ... tapi aksi menggaru paling hebat dipegang oleh si Suna sampai Abe Hasse kata, itu tandanya yang datang menggigit nyamuk jantan hahaha

Banyak lagi cerita di sebalik gambar tu ... tak larat sudah I ketawa nie and jam sudah pun menunjukkan pukul 1.15 pagi. Ok mie signing out.

Cruel To Be Kind

Actually there is an entry with this title published earlier but after reading through, I decided to delete it. Many feelings will be hurt after reading it and that is not the purpose of this blog - to hurt, to harm or spreading rumors.

However, to me personally, it's a relief that I am able to let it out of my chest. Though no one knows wat was it all about. Well, let me put it this way ... there were few incidences that really tried out my patience, dignity and sipped out my energy. But this time instead of avoiding it, I am gonna face it and turned the table around to the people that caused it.

Sounds like I am taking a revenge or bear grudges on some people... hell no! Well to put it nicely ... there are people who just never learnt their lessons, or taking advantage of you or have planted seed of guilt inside of you for their benefits.

Well like aunt ming said it," Sometimes in our life, we need to be cruel to be kind. It might not kill that person, it will kill you later".