Being Healthy

1 Box of Honey Bunches of Oats

1 Box of Nature's Valley Energy Bars

1 Packet of Instant Nesvita

1 Tin of Hi Fiber Jacobs Crackers

1 Packet of Seaweed Snack

1 bottle of Nutella

1 loaf of Gardenia

1 Packet of Maggie Mee

Cost me a whopping RM50!

Good healthy food is getting way to expensive. I'm trying to get my office to eat healthy breakfast. I'm a snackaholic, so snacking healthy is way too important. Masjid india only has either roti canai or nasi lemak as their variation for breakfast. Goreng pisang, Keropok lekor, Cucur Udang, Vadai, Fried fishballs, Nuggets, are the mid-day snacks option. And eating that on a daily basis has caused me to put on a whopping 3 kgs in the past 5 months! i went for 44kgs to 47kgs! bleughhhhhhhhhhhh Thank God i can still squeeze into my size 24 skinny jeans...... but this is as fat as i go!

Well, nothing good comes without a hefty price tag....Cheers!

My "BITE" on the Petrol Price Hike

"Hallo, where you at", I hear a distressed voice at the end of the line.

"Hmmm, still waiting for the bus to work, since the fuel hike, more people are turning to public transportation," i lament while unconsciously pouting my lips. Thinking of my unpleasant journey ahead where i have to squeeze into a bus full of mixed perfumes and odors.

"You know what! Bastards came and fixed parking meters in my office area yesterday! They must have done it at night because they knew people would go into a fit!" Bernard sounds exasperated

i grin... On one hand, i was thinking, "wow, i never knew he didn't have to pay daily parking and thinking hahaha... now you have to feel what most people feel" but on the other hand, i felt sympathy that as of now, his expenses has just increased on a daily basis. And it's not like he has an option to not drive to work or park elsewhere since it's God forsaken Kampung Pandan. This hike in expenditure is not even an option. It's an ultimatum.

As i read through the papers everyday, with no fail there was daily opinions, complaints, verbal bashing of the government and opposition parties taking advantage to strengthen their popularity with public by posing negative opinion of the fuel hike. And i thought to myself, it's been a while but somehow, it's not getting stale. The impact is felt more than ever in fact because now people are starting to feel the side effects.

First people protested due to the anticipation. They could vision the worst case scenario that was bout to come. Vision the life changing situation and sacrifices they'd have to make to bring life back to its normal pace. So people had plenty speculate about... Then, after 2 weeks, people started experiencing the effects, while some had it under control, most experienced inconvenience. People started cutting cost in daily basic necessities.

Now is the moment where people are showing side effects. It's like a drug creeping through your veins where you have no control over where it goes and which organ it'd affect. Sure our government said, make use of the public transportation we've prepared.. Well, first things first, "YOUR" transportation lacks discipline and timing. It "ain't" great. It's there, but on a personal point of view, having to switch from using your own vehicle to using public transportation is a sacrifice and an inconvenience and not everyone can get used to. I've never been a fan of Singapore, but i applaud them for their public transportation services. They're reliable, on time, won't get you fired and won't cause an extra penny in your pocket for deodorants and oxygen tanks. Not ONE Singaporean has ever lament over their public transportation. WHat's it i hear??? ohhhhh... Singapore's small so it's easier to control?? I see.... BULLSHIT! Well, we've got more parliamentarians, and more people to pool in effort and not to mention, more funds ( IF we stop spending unneccesary moment on things like the pweety pweety Lamp posts along the Putrajaya roads which each cost RM10k.

Among all our modes of transportation, none is truly reliable. The Putra LRT perhaps is the best out of the lot but during rush hour, it DOES NOT take 10-20 minutes to get to your destination, simply because it takes you 20-30 minutes to just queue to get into the fucking lrt! And now with more people turning to public transportation??? I waited for 45 minutes today to get into a train at Bangsar lrt. From 8.05am to 8.55am. Work starts at 9am....

Our government says that if other progressing countries can pay that amount for petrol, why can't we? Well, we can if you fucking pay us what other countries are paying their professionals! our income expenditure ratio is incomparable to other progressing countries. A fresh graduate's pay in KL ranges from RM1600 to 2500. A a fresh graduate in the states earn USD2500-3000. Don't do the currency conversion. If a fresh graduate was given RM 2500-3000, i swear life would be bearable with whatever hike the government wants to impose further. Food prices are going up, petrol has gone up, now parking meters emerging ever Gawd'Damn where..Tols have increased, Word has it that in two months time electricity is increasing to RM0.30 per unit, so this will cause an approximate 30-35% increase in our bills according to our current usage.

I believe that we Malaysians complain for a good reason. We're not just stingy buggers wanting to save an extra penny. We're not too proud to take the pulic transportation because it's more classy to drive our own "kancil-proton" whatever... We've taken matters into our own hands because we know at least "WE" can trust "OURSELVES" to be reliable. Therefore, by imposing ridiculous hikes in our daily neccesities, is robbing us of our independence, and robbing us of our choice, and robbing us of our sense of responsibility ..and most importantly, robbing us of our comfort.

Some columnist say that we can use less electricity, walk more just like "ol" days in order to deal with the price hike, well, my response to that is, if you call Malaysia a progressing nation and the price hike deem fits that image, then why the hell would you ask us to go back to the past and live as cave men??

There is such a phenomenon as "Natural Beauty"... Or is there?

At a barbecue last week, my cousins and i were just catching up. A topic then came up about "living together" with your partner. Having spent a great deal of time with her partner and almost literally living together, she expressed how difficult living in with a person really is. Now at some point of our lives, we've definitely had roomies before. I'm sure despite the friendship, fun and girlie talks we used to share and enjoy, each of us definitely had some degree of discontentment towards the other person. The more we live with the person, the bigger the test of our relationship. Especially as a couple. Especially with someone you'd want to impress.

Men have a common perception. I'm not by any means indicating it's a bad habit, or a habit to be changed, or a perception women may not posses, or a trait which makes them a jerk. None of the above. It's just their genetic composition and you can love it, or hate it, you'l never get rid of it.

Their common perception is women are born the way they look. Now i was sitting at the waxing parlour today and girls will be girls, we were talking about the areas they could possibly waxed. Blessed with my chinese genes, i only wax when i feel like it, hardly have much hair to remove.

This is the thing. Men think that women simply look the way they do! They either look hot, good, or bad. No grey areas there...Hot women know how to dress and match, look all groomed and smell like a bed of roses, have lovely flowing hair, a temptress attitute even when they're subtle, have matching nails and toe nails, soft skin, fair and smooth complexion, speak in an articulate manner, walk with grace, etc.. the list just goes on

Good looking women dont mix and match as much as Hot women do, but they're well kept, have nice teeth, have a sense of humor, have nice clean hair, an amazing smile etc,

Bad looking women? well, they're simply women who are left unkept. Of course men like to oogle at well kept women, but they have a perception that women are born like that. That having perfectly manicured nails and lawned legs and bikini lines are something they are born with. The truth is, men CANNOT handle women "au naturel". They cannot and will not accept that women go to great lengths to look the way they do.

In today's world, "au naturel" means using the correct shade of make up to enhance your look, (not omiting make up completely. It means shaving your legs and plucking your eyebrows ( not leaving any stray hair anywhere ). It means having long wavy hair or a soft smooth mane. ( frizzy hair is not "naturel", rebonding is ). Having soft smooth baby fair skin. ( whitening products are more important that SPF products) and the list goes on!

Women go to such great lengths to groom groom groom simply to find themselves a "groom" one day. Men on the other hand, have forgotten that sometimes, we want to be applauded for our efforts. THAT is why we ask, "honey do i look nice in this?" "baby do i look fat?" "Sweetie do i look prettier than the girl there?" Reassurance dudes! Thats what we need from you since you don't exactly compliment us. Why do women get upset when their new nail color or earrings are not complimented upon. Men call us vain, Women simply crave for acknowledgement that we've gone to certain lengths to look good for men.

And then there comes the living together part. My mum always said, "why buy the cow when you can get free milk?" i never quite got it. Mum's metaphors are mostly directly translated chinese sayings. But to put some thought to it, she does have some sense, Living together means sleeping together, If you live together with the mere bond of your relationship ( which is a verbal bond ), walking away is always an option. But to be bonded by the sanctity of holy matrimony, bet you'd think a hundred times before you walk away.

I met my friend's girlfriend recently.

"She looks nice." i smiled as i commented when she made her way to the washroom. "Nice" in my context meant decent looking, well groomed, not a baywatch babe but good enough.

"Yeah" my friend replied, unenthusiatically

"Why la?? Whats wrong?? You don't think your girlfriends nice???" i probed

" NO no... she's great its just, you think she looks nice cz you don't see the hair she leaves in the shower, her sanitary napkins (which has an odor) she often forgets on the sink, her dirty panties she leaves in the laundry basket with all my clothes and yeah i don't know why but she plucks her arm pit hair and waxes her legs in front of me!!!!! So of course she looks nice. Cz you don't see all the things she does to look nice. If she didn't, she won't look nice. So technically, she's not that pretty..." he trailed off as "ms Girlfriend came back to the table.

I, on the other hand felt sick. I wished i didn't ask. Now he didn't have to be so detailed and it was disrespectful to share with me his girlfriend does in her private time and space. Information overload.

Over dinner, i hardly kept my mind on our conversations. My mind kept floating back to what he said. And although i felt sick because he talked bout his girlfriend's sanitary napkins (GROANNNN), his girlfriend was just being a normal girl/woman and doing the normal things women do to look nice! Who ever said that women must hide in the bathroom and groom themselves in privacy. And since when "pretty" had to do with not "grooming"? Home is private enough. And men do not understand that by sharing that home, you share everything else that comes with it. Women do not complain when men brush their teeth, scratch their arse or balls in front of us. We don't complain and get irked by sauce dribbling down the front of your shirt. We think you look nice in anything or nothing. Because very few men are metrosexual. How many men shave their pubes? And how many women DON't shave/wax their bikini patch? How many men even bother to shave their facial hair everyday? You do the math..

Because men have the idea that women look the way they do on streets everywhere else and are born like that, living in can be a culture shock to poor men. They get irked by all the rituals women perform to look the way they do. Thats why the magic of marriage dies off eventually. And when people are not bonded by holy matrimony, the bond dies off even faster...

So men, if you're reading this, maybe it's time you've come to terms that you have been grossly mistaken by the origins of "natural beauty". Looking fresh and having great skin and hair and having long eye lashes is by no means anywhere close to being "au naturel". Products baby! thats what women are made off. So prep yourself next time you see a pretty girl walk past. A well groomed woman is like a walking pharmacy. Everything she needs for touch up is in her purse and products are all over her body to make her look ravishing. SO save yourselves the culture shock. Every nook and cranny that we've plucked waxed, shaved, deserves an applaud or a praise from you, because it fucking hurts! and yet we go through the pain just for you....

"Natural Beauty" does not exist.... Learn to live with it.....

CHeers!

One Tiny Striped Aedes Mosquito

Two weeks ago, my Mami fell really sick.

My mum is a very strong person. If there's anything i've inherited from her, it's her Willpower. Well, some call it stubbornness, but i call it persistence. She is unmovable once she sets her mind on a matter. It was always an admirable trait, but this time around, it almost cost her life in exchange of her will.

Last week, when i called home as i normally did, my parents missed 6 of my calls. When my dad finally picked up my call, he sounded like he has daggers in his throat. When i asked to speak to my mum, he said my mum couldn't come to the phone because she was too sick and needed to rest, That was peculiar to me. I know my mother. She would never miss a call of mine, even if she was in the midst of doing "number 2" in the lavatory.

I rushed back to jb on a Monday night, God bless Bernard's soul for being there for and with me! To my dismay things didn't look good at all. My mum was so weak. I saw her 2 weeks before that and yet she looked 2 yrs older than a fortnight ago. Worried sick, the next morning i took her to the hospital. As much as i wanted to take her to a Private hospital, my mum was adamant about going to the government hospital simply because it was cheaper. Like i said earlier on, my mum has a will of iron and i could not even crack into her resolution. My mum waited at the hosp for hours. I could only imagine the agony of having to sit up for 3-4 hours waiting for your turn to take blood samples, being poked by inexperienced and conscienceless trainee medical practitioners, and waiting for one single consultation while having a burning fever. Well, nothing much can be done. You get what you pay for. RM1 treatment for RM1 fee. My mum was put on bottles of drips as she had suspected dengue.

Refused with whatever will she had left to be hospitalized, i took her to our family doctor who insisted i took her back to the hosp as she was as sure as hell infected by dengue fever. He gave me a referral letter to the "Government Specialist Hospital" in JB and referred her case to the"Emergency and Accident" Unit.

One would think for a moment that the word emergency simply means, "EMERGENCY!!" not to government servants. As there was no blood spilling from my mum, non of her body parts were missing, and she was conscious, they decided we could wait a little for registration. ( funny emergency units have registration also). So we waited.. and waited, for 40 minutes before they called my mum's name and had me fill some forms. And then we waited.... and waited again... for another half an hour for my mum to be called in the room. To clarify matters, should there had been ten other patients waiting in turn before my mum, i wouldn't even squeak, there was one... And that poor woman on the wheelchair with what i can only hope was not a broken arm waited too... as almost as long as my mum waited... when my mum was called in, a nurse attended to her. She mercilessly poked and squiggled a needle into three locations on my mum's already frail hands trying to find a vein. I almost cried, because for once i wasn't repulsed by watching a needle poked into flesh, but the agony on my mum's face just made me tear. She kept my mum on drip, and explained that the doctor will come and check my mother's condition as soon as he/she was available. And so we waited again, one bottle of drip finished, they replaced another one, and still, no doctor. Finally, famished from running around the entire day, Bernard and i went to a drive through McD's ( cz it was the nearest thing), and we voraciously swallowed down our food while driving back to the hospital. As soon as we parked, i called my mum and she said she was waiting outside the emergency unit to be taken home.

Trying to contain my anger that they did NOT hospitalize her, or give her her blood test results, i marched in and looked for the doctor in charge. I asked the nurse for her blood results and i was told it was confidential.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me. I'm her daughter, you discharged my mum without her blood results, even when you knew she was in a delirious state, and you're fucking telling me you can't give me her blood results? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FUCK AROUND WITH ME?" those were my exact words.

The nurse looked like i shot her. Slowly, she logged on to her computer and showed me my mum's computerized blood test results. She had to wait till my speech was laden with profanities and my actions were on the verge of being barbaric to just give me my mother's blood test results. PFFT! i don't regret acting the way i did. She deserved it.

Normal platlets count in a person is approximately 150k to 450k per litre of blood. My mum's morning blood test results showed 128k and the present one that i was looking at was 105k per litre. I insisted to see the doctor who attended to my mother. According to her it's hospital procedure that they only admit suspected Dengue patients when it has reached a critical point which is 100k per litre. Big fucking difference but okay, i respected their protocols. I insisted for my mum to come back for a followup check up the following morning since moronic doctors couldn't read her platlet count pattern and anticipate a further fall in the next few hours. They finally agreed cz i looked as if i was going to murder them should i accidentally bump into them in the parking lot.

I had to rush back to kl that very night due to work. Tenaganita was absolutely understanding over my mum's condition and my project manager gave me her full support and permission to return home to care for my mum. However, i knew i couldn't overdo it. I would go home over the weekend anyway.

The following morning, my cousin called to say my mum was finally admitted. Alot of "hu-hahs" went on and they made my mother wait (AGAIN) for her new blood test before hospitalizing her. My cousin had to threaten to write an article in the newspapers of their incompetence
( she's an NSTP reporter ). Like magic, my mum was straight away hospitalized without another word of argument.

When they finally got my mum's blood test results, her platlets had dropped to 56k compared to the previous night's 105k, ( not critical enough aye?). After a week, my mum finally had her full blown Hemorrhaging Dengue and is now on the road to recovery.

The point of my story is, i almost lost my mum. No doubt her hardheadedness played a role in her near-death experience, the incompetence of medical workers was what that irked me most. A patient will always be a patient. Nobody's ever enthusiatic about getting treatment even if they know they need it. It's not something pleasant. So besides providing expertise, medical workers should have negotiation and basic counseling skills to encourage patients who are difficult to seek treatment, and not happily turn them away, when they are too delirious to make decisions for their own well being.
Do you know why Malaysian health and medical workers are so incompetent. It is because, People don't use their legal rights enough in this country. People don't sue. People don't know and don't bother to fight for consumer rights. And for a few of us who actually do, people label us as "boisterous, arrogant, rude, cerewet, etc" Few are passionate about their job as medical workers, because we seek to fulfill racial quotas in government higher institutes instead of looking for truly deserving , passionate individuals to be trained for the job. Without passion, there cannot be commitment, without commitment, there cannot be competence....

For newbies out there, Don't just study a course because it looks glamorous, because it sounds complicated and must therefore be something great, of because your parents want you to. Half the students at HELP and SEGi were studying psychology without having a clue of what they career they wanted to take on after graduating. You know the term sampah masyarakat?
You could be one even with a degree. You don't have to commit obvious crimes to be one. Denying a person real information that could cost their lives is a crime. What good are you as a degree holder, if you cannot contribute back to your society with something substantial?
Food for thought.....

Special thanks to all who helped me and my family through my mum's entire hospitalization. Ratheega, thank you so much to you and your family for running my mum's and dad's errands while i couldn't be there. Ng, thank you for your support, and help even tho you were 8 months pregnant! Bee kim, thanks for scaring the shit out of the hospital staff and getting my mum admited, Danny, thanks for taking my mum home after she was discharged. Bernard my sweetest baby.. Thank you for being there with me, taking time off work, driving me back all the way to jb, helping me and my family through and putting up with me while i was irrational and difficult. I love you baby...

Some mentally challenged "person" decided to write about a "Men's Side Story" on lamentations they've had to endure from the women race. Hihihi.. While it does come across as true in certain areas, i felt compelled to rebut as some input weren't very intelligent and only proved further that men can be selfish left-brain user pigs... Venus vs Mars!

All rebuttals bear no mallicious intentions.

At last a guy, Monsieur BayiSingh has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, the guys' side of the story.
We always hear ' the rules' from the female side.
Now here are the rules from the male side.


1. Men are NOT mind readers. (well, for what's worth, women are already aware of that fact since men think more efficiently with their dicks)

2. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down. ( That i agree... as long as you dun piss all over the seat, leave the seat the way you deem fit)

3. Sunday sports It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be. ( It just saddens us that you'd rather watch a group of sweaty men running around in shorts on the idiot box than to oogle at us braless, next to you! )

4. Crying is blackmail. ( It's a healthy coping strategy, it's not our fault if some men's tear-ducts are stuffed with ego, and not all women cry to get their way!)

5. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it! (hehehe.. well that one's true...)

6. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question. ( Who said it isn't?? Haven't met many decent ladies then...)

7. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. (well honey, sorry to burst ur bubble but you ain;'t superman. We know most of the time, you're incapable of solving our problems)

8. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become
Null and void after 7 Days..( funny how men don't hold true to that rule if a woman comments on the size of their manhood)

9. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.. ( hey! we don't mind if you're a barrel of lard or have a receading hairline cz we love you and still think you look sexy, but we know you MIND us having a little love handle, thats why we ask for reassurance )

10. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one ( thing is, most things men say are so direct that there is only one meaning to it )

11. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not both. ( Whats the point, men never get it right the first time anyway. So either way, you'd still fail the first time )

12. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials..( Well, aren't you ashamed that you can't even multitask that BIT?)

13. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we. ( He had a compass you fool, and 52 men on board to navigate. On top of that! he mistook Polynesia for China, who's the smart one now aye??)

14. ALL men see in only 16 colors,like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is. ( That's why we go shopping with our gay friends:) )

16. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that . ( go ahead. as long as ur not scratching ur privates in public )

17. If we ask what is wrong and you say 'nothing,' We will act like nothing's wrong.. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle. ( If we tell you all the time what's wrong, you'd never learn to be more sensitive to our needs, no?)

18.. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you don't want to hear. ( Hey! that works both ways, for men and women!)

19. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine... Really . ( oh really? how would you like it if we walked out with our lingerie? that's comfortable)

20. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss topics such as football or F1. ( honey, get a life. sitting on that couch 12 hours a day watching Ronaldo or Alonso does not make you any fitter or any chummier with the stars, we'll be more than willing to hear bout it when you're as popular as they are!)

21. You have enough clothes. ( enough is a subjective term )

22. You have too many shoes. ( well, its not our fault we put in an effort to look nice for your sake)

23. I am in shape. Round IS a shape! ( remember, some women can fake orgasms )