A DATE WITH HUBBY

I have been complaining to Hubby that we haven't been to a movie for years... yes.. believe it! It's been years since we last set our feet inside a cinema. I can't even remember what the last movie that both of us watched was. It could be The Lord of the Rings. How many years has it been then...?

So, tomorrow both of us are taking a day off!! The main purpose is... (take a wild guess...) to spend more time (the whole day in fact) together... but I would rather fondly recognise it as reliving our courting days... We have planned out the day carefully. It'll start with meeting with my gynae for my fortnightly check up. Then, we're going for a movie (most probably Batman), then shopping, then movie again (we haven't decided yet what movie it's going to be), then may be we'll end our day with a fancy dinner. But whatever it is... it's going to be just the two of us...

In all excitement, I still can't shake away one question that's been mingling in my mind. Why oh why do we have to take a day off to do all of those things...? Why can't we go on dates on a regular basis? It struck me then... ever since we have Iqie, we have sort of stopped being a "couple" and without realising it, we have assumed the role of "parents". We have never thought that we could still be a "couple" when we became "parents". I am confusing myself here hehehe...

What I want to say is that having a child shouldn't stop us going out on dates, just the two of us. We need that dating sessions to spend time together... to catch up on that "love feelings" that once were burning like the summer sun... well... they're still burning like mad of course, but in a different way. When I look back, most of our "dates" nowadays are threesome... I'm not saying they'rs bad... they are good family outings and all... but at the same time I really feel that Hubby and I need to have our "dates" back... just like the old times.

When I say that I need to have "dates" with Hubby, it doesn't mean that Iqie is left behind. Of course we have to balance between dating and family outing. We can't be concentrating on family outings only when as a couple we used to date. Such a dramatic change took place there... I strongly believe that "parents" should relive their "couple's" days... at least for them to stay sane... hehhehee... I need some space for myself and step away for a while from being a mother all the time and Hubby has his space almost every Saturday with his car enthusiast friends. I need to go out and meet other people too to reconnect with the world outside the vicinity of my condo.

Of course I have to emphasise that this is not a cry for more freedom... I love spending time with Iqie and Hubby... only that sometimes... there is a piece of me that just want to do some crazy things like what I used to do yesteryears...

ieja

THE BIG BLUNDER

I have been kept busy lately with work... (who doesn't...!). With the KM project kicking in, there are a lot of presentations to prepare, conduct and sit in. But hey... I enjoy doing all those things. I don't mind working till late at night... But with my time spent on work most of the time, I don't seem to have the time to read chedet anymore, or read the latest news (I'm reduced to the non-mainstream media nowadays, remember?), or catch up with my friends either online or offline. But I'll make it up...

However, today was a bit different. I had to be in Putrajaya for one of those presentations to one of the Ministries for our KM project. I was so engrossed with work and with my other colleagues that I absent-mindedly answered a call from someone from work called "A". Being me, I had to crack jokes first before asking what he wanted. The conversation went something like this...

*ring*ring*

Me:
Hello "A"... I'm not in the hospital yet.. (I'm due in October, but people are worried that I'm going to deliver early...)

"A":
Hi Liza, I've just confirmed a meeting with xxxxx at 2.30 pm today. Can you join us. I'll be meeting so and so...

Me:
OK, I'll skip xxxx's presentation in the afternoon. What do we need to do for this meeting?

"A":
Just print out the slides that we presented last time for about 8 copies.

Me:
OK. Are you in the office? Can you print the slides for me? I'll email you the file and I'll bring the folders with me later... and by the way... what's the agenda?

"A":
errr... I'm in a meeting right now... can you ask xxxx to print for you?


*At this point, I realised that it was so not the usual reply from my colleague*

Me:
errr... is this "A Hus" or "A Has"...? (nervously...)

"A":
errr... this is "A Has"...

Me:
OMG!!! I'm so sorry... I thought you were "A Hus"... I am so... sorry...

"A Has" is one of the Directors in the company...!!!!!!! I have just asked MY DIRECTOR to do some printing for me when all this while he never prints his own work... he has someone to do it for him..!! "A Hus", on the other hand, is my colleague that I work with... The whole room laughed at me... and I bet this will be the news for the day that will be delivered via multi channels...

So, moral of the story... when you label the names in your phone directory, make sure you label them clearly so that you won't make the same blunder... Immediately (still red-faced though - hot from the embarrassment) after I ended the conversation (rather abruptly I guess...) I edited both "A" names in my phone directory!

ieja

NO MORE A BOY'S TOY

As much as I hate to admit it (especially to Hubby!), I actually love my car. Yes, I enjoy driving my own car. You must be wondering what car am I driving now... hehehhe... It's just an old car, nothing fancy I swear... it's just a 1996 Honda Civic SO3. Most people recognise it as 2-door (hatchback) EK.

But what makes it so lovable? The fact that it's one of the chase-after cars makes me love it even more... hehehe.. but apart from that, I just love the performance. The 1.8 big Vtec engine adds to the thrill especially after I pay my toll. The exhilaration and anticipation of the "praaaaannnggg" sound every time I leave the toll booth are just indescribable. The highway or empty roads are other avenues for me to floor the gas pedal (I'm not like Hubby who can cilok anywhere anytime!).

Yes... people ask... what do a girl know about cars. You'll be surprised how much this girl knows about her car. I know what Mugen and Spoon are, where Kakimotor and N1 Racing are, what HOC and Zerotohundred are (even PMC!), what AFC and e-manage are. I might be a bit daft when it comes to the history of Honda or Vtec, but I sure do know the generations of Civic quite well.

But of course, I have to bow to Hubby. He's been educating me and filling me up with all the information (sometimes overload!). The education has benefited not only me, but (mostly) him as well coz now he has someone to listen to whenever he talks about his passion and understands it. But the greatest plus point is that he gets most of his gadgets for his beloved blackie in terms of his birthday presents, anniversary presents, father's day presents and if possible for him, all of the public holidays presents.

The minus point for me is very obvious as well. I get car gadgets as well for most of the special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. For a girl like me, sadly, jewelery is a rare thing (not that I fancy them much!).

There are still a lot of work to be done on the car before both Hubby and I are fully satisfied with it. The engine performance is not my concern as I'm happy with it already. Athough Hubby has been feeding me with a lot of ideas on how to make it perform better - like swapping the block, installing ARC radiator (my god... it's so expensive!) and a lot more. But I'm not buying them... Our primary concern now is the body work. We're waiting for the right time when we can swap the EK9 parts with the original ones, the suspension has to be Tien, the spoiler has to be Spoon and the body paint has to be black. We just swapped the exhaust from Vision R to Spoon... so we're almost there... hehehhee...

ieja

A MEETING WITH A CERTAIN KSU

Since I am in-charged of a certain Ministry in the project that I'm involved in right now, a meeting with the KSU is a must in order for us to kick off the project formally in that Ministry. The stories that was fed to us by our project sponsor were somewhat scary... we thought that they were exaggerating. Little that we know that this certain KSU would be our worst nightmare in terms of dealing with high powered people in the government. I have to say that although I've been involved with the Government projects a lot and met with quite a number of KSUs and Ketua Pengarahs, this certain KSU must be the worst among the lot.

Yesterday, we were scheduled for a meeting with him and his team to formally introduce the project to them, at the same time trying to pinch for a kick off. We've been patiently waiting for 2 months for this meeting to happen. Unfortunately, our meeting was conjoined with another project which was already running at that particular Ministry. We were already forewarned by the other project team members of the treatment that they got from that KSU. Even when we met up with some people in one of the departments in the Ministry, we were forewarned of the possible catastrophe that might befall us during the meeting.

So, highly motivated and mentally prepared, and with a couple of rounds of dry-runed presentation with the other team members as well as with the personnel of one of the departments in the Ministry, we thought we were armed and fully prepared.

Round one - the first project team presented their piece. Bang! Bang! Bang! One by one of their slides was shot down by the KSU. Some made sense, while the other comments were just some waste-of-my-time babbling. By the way, the meeting was scheduled at 2.30 pm but started only when the clock almost struck 3. The beating and shooting in round one finished at a little past 6 pm.

Round two - I presented our case. Based on the comments he made in the first round, I had to make a few adjustments to what I wanted to present earlier to minimise the shooting and to ensure that we met his expectations. But after a few slides, the shooting began... started with... "You private sector don't understand our ministry. We are not jakun (out-dated) you know..." and so the lecture began as how his Ministry was ranked among the best, had the best portal, had the best policies, acts and so on...

The mistake was... our slides on the current scenario of what most ministries are facing in terms of their obsolete / unstructured databases to ad-hoc processes within the ministries... of all the 10 situations that we presented, he said we were wrong... how can we possible be wrong (with not even 1 right!) when what we presented was from studies that were done by professionals. Whatever he commented contradicted to what he said in round one. Finding out what the Ministry is doing was an important thing to him for the private sector like us to work hand in hand with them (as what he commented in round one), but when we said that one of the approaches that we would take was to do a study in the Ministry in order to understand their business strategy and processes, we were told off and said to be wasting the staff's precious time. I only got to present our case for 10 minutes and the rest was his time to bla.. bla.. bla.. bla till 7 pm!

Well... what I wanted to say here is that when you are "up" there, a little modesty would take you a long way instead of being arrogance and not admitting it. Listen to people first before you form your own judgment. And if you have any negative thoughts, please keep it to yourself, and be open-minded of what people are offering to you. Being realistic and thinking out of the box help as well. Put whatever negative feelings behind when you have a meeting with outsiders because whatever comment you make will reflect you as an individual, as well as your Ministry as a whole.

If I had the chance to say my piece to him, I would tell him to grow up and take a walk out of his cocoon.

ieja

PUTTING MY BELOVED CAT TO SLEEP

Yesterday was an emotional day for Hubby and I. We had to put our dear Scooby to sleep... Yes... our 9 year-old local breed four-legged first son.

Nine years ago, Hubby (my boyfriend back then) and I collected a about-week-old kitten under the stairs of his apartment. We nursed and fed him. Involuntarily and with no unconscious effort, the bond took root. Since he was afraid of every little thing and sound he heard in the house, we decided to call him Scooby. The name suited him well. Although it took him a while to adjust to the love and tender loving care that we gave him, he became very attached to us and replied to our calls only . When Iqie arrived, Scooby was intimidated at first, but after a while he was OK... getting out of Iqie's way most of the time. But Iqie liked to chase after him a lot.

A few weeks ago, he went out and missing. We thought that he was kidnapped by someone. We went looking for him around our condo, calling his name in the hope that we would hear his voice calling back to us. To our relieve, he came back home after two days of futile search. He was bruised and the cuts that he had were pretty bad. So Hubby and I nursed him again with antiseptic and gamat. He became aloof since then, licking the medicine off his cuts.

When the cuts didn't heal at all after a few weeks, we sort of knew something was not right. So, yesterday Hubby and I took a half day leave and took him to the vet. The bad news came from the vet, Scooby was infected with a disease (I forgot the name of it as the news was too shocking for me to even digest!). Ergo, the vet advised us to put him to sleep, for the sake of the baby that is coming and the whole family. He said the disease could infect us human and the consequences would be bad. We could be hospitalised. He even wanted us to disinfect the whole house. And we did all those.

We were given time to discuss. At first, it didn't hit us. When we simply had to face our pet's mortality, it's like somebody had turned on the waterworks. I'm ashamed to admit here that I actually cried shamelessly in front of the vet, his assistant and two other customers who came in with their dog. I told the vet that I wanted to sit in when "it" happened. But again, he told me not to (what a wise advice.. or else I wouldn't be able to sleep for a week!). He said it would be too painful (not to Scooby) to me.

It took only a few seconds, and Scooby was gone! Lying motionless on the examination table...

I just can't describe how Hubby and I felt. But what I can say is that Hubby was all red eyes, a significant sign to show that he shared my sadness...

ieja

I'M WORRIED

It's getting worse every day. With the arrest, roadblocks and other things, I don't feel safe anymore. It would be different if I was still single with or without a boyfriend. But now that I have my own family, a son and another one coming, what is happening in Malaysia is worrisome.

I hate politics.. I guess I've said that enough times. I've tried my best not to talk about it. But the situations nowadays require everyone to be in the loop of the topic. That is what I want to avoid. Thus, most of my thoughts in this blog focus more on safe topics... I need to focus my thoughts on safe topics so that I won't be inspired to talk, debate or even pick fights with those who are too extreme.

I better start thinking of more safe topics from now on...

ieja

MY (WEIRD) COLLECTION

I like to collect. Well... in a way, most people do. But, the things that I collect are sometimes things that even I can't explain why someone would want to collect them. When I was studying, I used to keep things that are dear to me, or things that make me happy. I have a full box of postcards that I collected throughout my stay in the UK. They are everything from free ads postcards, postcards of places that I've been to, postcards with interesting and funny pictures or wordings or saying... you name it, I might have it.

When I look back at some of my collections, among them are small toys that often make me smile, I remember the old times. The fun times that I had with friends and other people... The times that I believe I would never have again...

But the problem now is that I'm too caught up with work and other things that I rarely have time to collect again, or even to enjoy them. They are being hauled away in boxes and I have even forgotten which box had I kept them. I supposed if these are the things that used to make me happy, I ought to revisit them once a while. But that "once a while" has never been in my daily agenda. Bad enough that I kept them away hidden in a box somewhere, but to stop collecting them?

I think I need to continue collecting these items. To restart my old hobby. They don't cost much anyway... and they make me happy. I wonder what my son would think of that... hehhehe. He may not be able to express his delights in words yet, but his actions would be enough for me to know if he approves my restarting of the old hobby.

ieja