Facts About Free Speech.

In wake of the hu-has about a controversial film insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), writer Yasmin Mogahed wrote something that I entirely agree with.

Quoted from her FB status:

Insult African Americans, and it is called "Racism".
Insult Jewish People, and it is called "anti-Semitism".
Insult women, and it is called "sexism".
Insult homosexuals, and it is called "intolerance".
Insult your country, and it is called "extremism".
Insult Muhammad (PBUH), and it is called "free speech".

True indeed.

So in reality, free speech is really very selective, isn't it.

Confession of a Hippie Wannabe

Confession. I've always had hippie tendencies. Save the world. Save paper. Recycle. Save water. Reuse. Upcycle. Hug trees. Plant trees. No airconds. No preservatives. Homemade's the best.

And the older I get, the stronger my hippie tendencies have become.

I want to be preservative-free. Toxic-free even. I want to go no-poo. I want to throw away these deodorants, lotions and soaps. I want my family to go no-poo. I want to use everything homemade. Yes that includes soaps, shampoos and everything under the sun. 

It ain't easy.

Food-wise, we rarely eat out anymore. Organic? Some, not all. Getting there InsyaAllah. It ain't cheap to be organic.

And it ain't easy being a hippie in this land. Too many critics, too many judgments. 

Down with it all! 

Tonight I washed my son's hair with honey. The bath room looks like a mini-kitchen, with apple cider and baking soda (for our homemade shampoo), and honey for cleansing and washing the kids' hair.

Now where's my daisy-print head scarf? 

This is how I imagine I look like..

 But this is how I probably look like in reality ;) (well if I'm lucky enough)

*Images from google!

But who cares? Who says standing up for your beliefs would be easy?

Onwards and upwards! Lets save the world and ourselves from toxic and illnesses.

A Letter to Malaysian Marathon Runners

I'd better write this while I have the time and flow.

Dear Marathon Runners,

It was indeed an exciting day today as we flocked together to run the 5km and 10km marathons right there in front of KLCC, in the wee hours of the morning. The excitement was electric and it was indeed a memorable picture to be gathered in a place where we'd otherwise wouldn't be allowed to walk on, much less run.

Perhaps for most of you this wasn't your first marathon. Why, there was the Standard Chartered KL marathon earlier this year. Then there are countless marathons and races around Malaysia and Singapore that I don't even know of. Just looking at the countless blogs on running made me realise that marathons and races have become the fashionably healthy thing to participate in right now. After my first marathon I'd comme to love the adrenaline, hence it was natural to join as many marathons as I am able to. It's a joy to walk and run in the early hours of dawn, where in truth, one's competition is only oneself.

Now let me blunt and just let out what needs to be said.

I know it's exciting to be all pumped up to run as immediately as the word "Go!" is shouted out, but please, please PLEASE take note that safety should be your first priority.

I'm not talking about your own safety. If any of you are willing to hurt yourself by hurling through the crowd at a speedy pace without a proper warmup or whatever, that's your business. I'm talking about the safety of other people around you.

Is it really necessary to barge into people, even elbow them aside to fight your way to the front of the crowd just so you seem very "terrer" and awesome? Please. For those that did just that, by now you should obviously realise that being an awesome runner is all you're good for. Well, good on you.. because you've displayed that kindness and sporting spirit is definitely nowhere in your personality traits.

It's a marathon. Marathons are filled with people. Big crowds. You want to have a lot of personal space while running, go and run somewhere alone. Don't join the big crowds.

And has it ever occured to you that accidents can easily happen? Does it ever occur to you that you could badly hurt someone, to the extend of changing their lives?

I've had two major spinal surgeries in my life. A bad smack or a bad fall could affect my spine and the lodged-in titanium implant on my spine. So I do keep aside for the crowds to past. I try very hard not to get in people's way. And the way everybody pushed and elbowed each other to get ahead was putting vivid images of yet another spinal surgery right there in my head.

Of course I realise we run at our own risk and if you want to stay safe and sound, for God's sake, just stay at home. But really, people, even if the streets were filled with perfectly healthy people... it does not make it alright for you to be rude and rash.

So go ahead and run. But please be more considerate of the people you are shoving and elbowing aside for the sake of an extra two to three seconds of better-ing your time.

Thanks for reading.

Yours Sincerely,

A slow and steady walker-jogger.

At House of Pakeeza

H and I met up with S&S (a couple who're good friends of ours who used to stay in Kemaman but have recently relocated to Selangor) earlier tonight for Iftar at House of Pakeeza in Seksyen 14.

The food was good, except the desserts which were pretty hopeless. The palak paneer we ordered on the side was great as usual. And the free flow of sirap is always good ;) Yes I'm easy to please.

Then as the night went on and the crowd thinned, I saw something that made me seriously displeased.

It was about 9+ p.m. by then, and we were amongst the few people still lingering there, chatting as we always do. I glanced over at the kueh section and saw a waiter collecting the pakoras which have fallen out of its bowl onto the table with his hands. By the way, pakoras are like kueh goreng made of flour and lotsa veges. He collected the pakoras at the center of the table, lazily scooped them up with both of his hands, and dumped them back into its bowl.

Yes, that's right. He'd put the fallen pakoras back into its serving dish and he'd even arranged the tongs nicely in the bowl so that the next person that comes along could unknowingly take the pakoras for a nice munching session.

I don't know about you.. but I find that a little more than distasteful. Very unappealing. Gross, even.

First, the pakoras were already scattered around the table. When I saw him collecting the pakoras with both his right and left hands.. I'd seriously thought he was going to dispose of them in the garbage bin, or at least have them taken away from the table.

Secondly.. How clean are those hands that have been serving tables all night? And to use both your right and left hand too.... now, think, what d'ya usually use your left hand for, fellas?

Thirdly.. come on, if you can do that in plain view of customers... what the heck are you capable of doin in the kitchen? YUCK. Perish the thought.

There should be such a thing as a Restaurant Police.

Owning Up

Was in Taman Megah today to get the suspected-fractured-foot x-ray-ed, and decided to park at the opened-air carpark behind the Sime Darby Health Centre in Tmn Megah. No improper parking for me, sirree, don't want no parking tickets.

Forty minutes later, Mom and I came back to my good ol' second-hand bright blue Avanza which I'd bought with my own sweat money from the good ol' working days in Melbourne, to find the Avanza's bum having been bumped by some car reversing out of its spot. Or whatever.

Yeah I could take a picture of it and post it up here. But I think looking at the picture would make me pi$$ed off somehow. It isn't so bad to warrant cursings and crying on my behalf (although Mom did utter colourful curse-phrases all the way home.. now, how come she wonders where I get my temper from?) because .. well, a car is just a car, right? And the car still works fine. And the dent + scratches aren't soo chronic that they can be seen from more than 20 metres away (err.. 10 metres away still can see lah, methinks). And.. well, there is nothing I can do at this point anyway, so I'm just going to take it as fated by God, as a test unto me.

You know that prayer of serenity they put on bookmarks?

It goes something like this:

"May God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference."

I like that one. It does have a lot of truth in it, doesn't it?

But let me just say one thing, guys.

If, lets just say, IF and IF any one of you out there accidentally bump into another person's car (especially a parked car, with its owner utterly oblivious to what's happening to his/her vehicle!)... do have the courage and courtesy to own up to it and do the right thing. Because.. well..

Because it's just the right thing to do.

The other party may diss you and hiss at you, but you can live with yourself knowing that you simply did the right thing. You didn't run, you didn't hide. You owned up. And that is just... SO right.

The Indon Maid Matter

Wowza. My maid was acting up the whole day (you know, one of those days when they cannot do anything right), and I tell you... my blood-went-upstairs when I read in The Star today about the demands made by the Indon government for their workers who are planning to work in Malaysia.

Hey don't get me wrong. I am thankful for the help that I get. But the demands made are RIDICULOUS.

The Indonesian side is saying that the demands are necessary because they must do what they can to protect their citizens' rights. Oh gee. So what about us, the Malaysian employers. What are our rights?

I've had two maids so far (this is our second one) but all my life we've always had maids. Alhamdulillah. When I was small, we had a local maid from Batang Berjuntai in Selangor. She was my nanny and Mom's maid. Her name was (is!) Kak Lela. She was with us for more than 10 years and was a part of our family. She left to marry and start a family and it was sad for all of us to see her go.

Mom hired weekly help after Kak Lela left and we got our first Indon maid when Shazwan was born in 1995 because sister was working then and Mom needed help caring for Shazwan. Since then there's been a succession of Indonesian maids in our home.

We never mistreat our maids. My parents' maid has been with us for 11 years and Sister's maid has been with us for 7 years. My first maid, Nila, wanted to stay but chose to go home because she had a toddler of her own. I hope our current one somehow would work a number of years to come.

But hullo! .... If you think having maids is something of a luxury and can really simplify one's life.. goodness how you are sadly mistaken.

When Sister was looking for maid of her own (about 8 years ago), she went through a few agents and was cheated out of thousands of ringgits when the maids ran off or stole things or were forced to be sent back.

Once (we suspect) we took in a maid who was part of a syndicate because she arrived, waited 3 days to see how our house worked, took some money and walked out of the house in broad daylight when she was supposed to be watering the plants outside. The agent remains MIA to this day.

Once we took in a maid who shrieked and cheered and danced when watching the TV. It freaked my parents and sister's family so much that she was sent back after 2 days of unending woots-woots, whistlings and clappings directed to mister television.

Another time we took in a maid from Kampung Pandan who told our Bibik (my parents' maid) that she can teach Bibik the "ways" to make the men in our house bow to the maids' needs and desires. Of the "jampi"/black magic sort. Shudder! We sent her back to the agent immediately and the agent had the nerve to call us a few days later with scoldings of how the maid claimed that she was not fed and was beaten severely by us. Grrrrr.

Then there are the countless maid-stories of people surrounding us.

My cousin Jiji got conned twice in the past year by two different agents and lost a total of RM8000 before dishing out another RM5000 for a third maid from yet another different agent. So far third time's the charm but imagine the money spent.. and the heartache. Never underestimate the heartache. Sakit hati lah..

A friend of my Mom's voiced out that she could not understand how her new maid could eat so much, on and on and on.. only to discover that the maid arrived from Indon already pregnant (the doctors fibbed about this in their medical report over there), and when told that she would have to be sent back, the maid ran off leaving the family high and dry without help and thousands of ringgits down the drain.

Then there's Mira whose maid ran off too, and she suspects the maid had been abusing her 2 year-old son Emir because of the tell-tale blue-black marks he had on him.

I can go on but then we'd never stop, would we? There're just too many maid-related horror stories.

Now the Indon government wants us to let the maids hold their own passports, and have their own bank accounts into which we'd be depositing their salaries for them to handle on their own. In their own hands. And lets not forget the one day off per week. My family usually lets Bibik go home to Indonesia for 3 months each time (she goes home every 1.5 to 2 years) because Bibik never gets a day off. Already now our Bibik's telling us she has no desire for one day off per week because that would be eating into her own money, and she'd have less opportunity and time to spend back in her homeland.

So what do you think..? Do you think all these demands would really help both parties... or would they make the relationships between employers and employees more vulnerable and irritable?

For me, personally, it's like this. Wallahualam... tapi if it's soo hard, Mister Indon Minister... there's still the rest of the third world countries for us to look at. Maybe having a Sri Lankan or Cambodian maid wouldn't be so bad after all.

H1N1 Gets Too Darn Close For Comfort

My nephew Shazwan's school (SM Damansara Utama / SMDU) has two cases of H1N1-infected students. Said students are supposed to have been properly quarantined as we speak.

Then for the life of me, please explain, SMDU, why we had to learn of this from the TV3 van parked in front of the school, which of course evoked Shazwan's dear old Atuk's curiousity (dear ol' Dad).. and he of course walked into the school to make enquiries on the matter. I doubt any parent was properly informed about this. Then TV3 talked about it during the 1.30 news and I suppose that's how most parents would learn about this piece of news.

Schools. Don't they have any sense of responsibility towards their students and the students' parents? And what the heck are those people in Jabatan Kesihatan doing? Wanna wait till the whole Damansara Utama is infected or quarantined, then baru decide to close the school, issit?

Excuse me if I sound pissed. That's coz I am.

H1N1's too close for comfort indeed.

For Malaysians With Scoliosis

I have finally started a blog on Scoliosis and it is here:

http://scoliosismalaysia.blogspot.com/

It's still empty (no-frills) and I'll have to work on it a lot more. I'm hoping to meet up with several specialists this June and start building a proper support network for young people with Scoliosis. It will be no easy feat, so I pray God will help me as I go along.

To anyone out there with Scoliosis, or knows anyone with Scoliosis, or anyone seeking information regarding Scoliosis and its treatments in Malaysia.. please do get in touch with me through my email as shown in the Scoliosis blog.

This attempt is not to discuss the correct method for Scoliosis treatment, because treatments are patient-dependent. It is not to promote the sort of treatment(s) that I personally went through (surgical and non-surgical). It is for the sole purpose of getting Scoliosis patients together, so that they do no feel alone in their fight for "normality".

I will keep you guys updated with the progress to achieve a support group. Wish me luck, friends!