Moving is fun!

Moving is not something that we love doing. It comes with careful planning and execution of your moving schedule effectively. It is like a dream come true when you have a new house. A new home also means that you have to move all your things from the old house to the new one. This was a challenge for us. We had to choose which ones are really needed and have to be moved. The rest of those other things should be sold or dumped. It will give a brand new start and ambiance in the new home. The first memory of our new home was filled with happiness! It can be a fun experience too! Actually it takes the right dose of attitude to make moving fun.
First things first, we have moved out successfully more or less and unpacking is in progress. Even though it can be exhausting, it gives a sense of rejuvenation. New atmosphere, new life and new furniture! It’s simply exciting! While unpacking, we tend to come across with some little surprises that sure to make us smile. Little cards, favorite stationeries, memorable gift from loved ones and other treasures that sure to excite our feelings.

What I love about moving house is I get to replace my old furniture and design the interior décor and layout with my own taste. Ever since we moved in I made lists of things to be purchased from IKEA. IKEA has fancy little items for your room and kitchen. However, I prefer getting my furniture at specialized furniture gallery which has better quality and design. Furniture’s at IKEA are not worth the buy! I spent about 120 bucks to furnish my room and kitchen with miscellaneous items.

Moving is a time to bond with loved ones and sit together to arrange the new home with understanding and love. You have to put all the things and furniture tidily.At the end of the day, the new home is filled with love, care and peace. I enjoy this moving spree and another moving fling is expected to take place a year from now I believe. A new home and a new spirit! I love March so much for rebranding my monotonous life.

Memoirs de Wedding

I realize I haven’t really talked about the wedding here. I talked about the days ahead of wedding and about the honeymoon, but nothing about the wedding. And I bet you’re thinking “I feel totally curious!” and you should (maybe for those who love to snoop and gossip about it). But the only reason I’m not talking about it yet is because I was waiting for my photos and video footage of it. Furthermore, I have been trying to evoke the sweetest thing about the wedding and keep the memories alive. It brings me close to tears at times (just emotionally touched) as I missed every little bits and pieces of my wedding right up to my honeymoon.
Just 2 weeks after wedding, I received all my photographs (except video recording from my aunt’s video cam) and made up my mind not to go public to the world. I spent huge bucks on the photography for engagement ceremony, actual day, reception and also my pre-wedding photo shoot. It turned out so beautiful which will be engraved in our hearts forever. So, once I got hold of the portraits, I chose to just furnish a glimpse of it to my social network. Just a splash here and elsewhere and tell you what happened. And you will laugh and you will cringe and you will look forward to your next wedding where you are a bride/groom and to be sure to pose naturally for the camera. Not the fake up at the front in the overly fancy clothes. Lemme tell ya, its fun to get back all the pictures and sit in circles to watch and shoot comments for every single picture. Ha-ha!! Also to reminisce the little flaws and candid moments that articulated such an expression in each one of us. I must say I love the candid shots more than anything.
Let’s roll back to my wedding reminiscence, How did that happen?! What I really wanted to say was: yesterday I was glancing through the reception photographs and our first dance song came on across my mind, and it totally floored me with how much it shake me up. And I don’t even remember our first dance all that much! But that moment, it gets me to relive that second. All credits goes to Selva, our down-to-earth master of ceremony and Adel, the vivacious Salsa queen. They both coaxed us to do the first dance right after our grand walk down to the pre-cocktail lounge. The next thing, I was blinking nervously to both of them and mustered up my cluttered mind to tell them that I don’t know what kind of steps do we need to dance and for how long? Seeing my uneasiness, Adel and Selva pacify me that it is going to be very short and simple steps. A sudden joy sparkled in my eye saying, “Why don’t I give it a try?” After all it is our night of glitz and glam, and we are the star of the night. I started to feel excitement fizzing up within me. It was fun to have Selva and Adel to coach both of us for the first dance. So I thought I would share it here. Just a bit of our wedding, Raj and I on the dance floor, twirling slowly (if you can do such a thing) and for a minute, feeling like we were alone. (Btw Adel was standing behind the piano with her smile while throwing me with some hand gesture that I need to remember. Ha-ha-ha. Thanks dear. You were of great help and made it more worthwhile).
The wedding was simple and sweet inclined by enriching Indian traditions. Every little facet of it reflected on our cultural practices. The food, the décor, and the flow of event looked…it was all justpurrrrfect! Everything went through well by grace of God. Here are a few of the memorable shots of the actual wedding ceremony, and exclusive twist of a very elegant reception. A precious moment that will be remembered till eternity.

Facebook a boon or a curse?

Facebook is a great gizmo to keep up with family and friends, share information, ask for advice, keep others posted about what is happening in your life and learn what is happening in other people’s lives when we don’t call everyday. Usually, Facebook makes reconnecting easier with family and friends that live far away. While Facebook can have heap of affirmative facets, there are also hitch that it comes with. More often than not, Facebook leads to numerous alarming social dilemmas.

I had always thought Facebook to be harmless social milieu where you get to keep in touch with your family and friends. "It's just Facebook; do you think can it really cause many problems in a relationship? This may come as no surprise to regular users of Facebook.
Facebook users have grown over the years and if we are not careful, it can spin off a wide gamut of problems starting from privacy invasion to ignite the fire of jealousy. At the end of the day, Facebook itself isn't to blame for the downfall of relationships. Instead, it's an avenue by which we should see Facebook for what it is; a great way to be in contact with family and friends.

Now, Facebook jealousy is a new trend that leads to netizen feeling insecure with their public lives when they try to match up to their own life with their family and friends as displayed on the social milieu. I learned about this early on when I was awaken by this uncanny truth. Living in this information eon, we are now in vulnerable circumstances whereby the information practically comes to you. All you have to do is log into site. The shout out on the wall, the tagged pictures, and the post that shares your personal lives might potentially elicit feelings of envy. I feel Facebook has made our lives stood still and leaving us in danger of too much publicity.

Today when I sat down to pen down this note, it raised a question in me which left me baffled. This is not the first time I am stirred up from my senses about the Facebook envy that sparked amongst my circle of acquaintances (funny right? Looks like I have a life that is so fascinating, zesty and full of life that can transform my Facebook ‘connections’ to be green-eyed monster).

In short, Facebook has become yet another avenue for you to weigh up yourself against others. It has become so easy with just a click away to pry into the lives of others that makes you want to keep up with theirs. The more time people spent on the social networking site, they more jealous they get by seeing snippets of other people’s personal lives on Facebook. So it could be the starting point for propagating jealousy.

The golden rule of Facebooking is that in life, you shouldn't be doing anything that you wouldn’t want to strip your privacy away and make your life a slave to virtual platform. Facebook isn't usually the problem. It's the behaviors that are the problem. Before we shoot blatant accusation on Facebook vulnerability and horrible curses to Mark Zuckerberg on the dawn of privacy invasion, just wait. The envy gene could be residing in your genetic blueprint. So it’s you and not Facebook entirely the root cause of all problems.
A mere public display of your personal life as in the cars that you drive, the vacations you go, the dream career that you have, the love of family, friends, spouse that you’re blessed with, the beautiful life that you’re savoring and even the fame and social echelon that you’re living in is simply enough to spark jealousy. This will turn the virtual networking into battles of ego. Sometimes the jealousy inflicted people may cross their boundary by posting imprudent messages, misinterpreting a wall post of another, judge their character through their shout out etc etc. In a nutshell, we never really know what is going on with other people and we can’t judge exactly what their relationship is like. Poking our noses over a picture and commenting on their integrity is nothing but inviting for trouble.
Facebook is meant to reinforce relationship, share information, and keep in touch with all our acquaintances in at every corners of the world. So let’s not fall off far from the concept. In order to evade jealousy in their life, retire from Facebook, get a life for good! It might sound strange but Facebook is addictive, and it can keep calling you back. So keep your thoughts sound and sane. There is more to life than staring pointlessly at FB wall and strategizing your dirty tactics. Get a life folks!

Can you mind your own business?

I am about to write something that drives me mad occasionally (or more often lately). I have never been able to comprehend why some people simply loves to get in the way of other people’s business. I don’t get the point of them being so prying into people’s affair. Does it really matter how I found my husband before we tie the knot? It does not. If you don’t like me just because I am far better than you, that’s too bad. Big deal. I don’t need this nonsense by the way. Is it any of their business to tell me their opinion or to interfere in my life? No. It is my life and I make the decision and of course it’s still none of your business if you’re just doing all this out of envy.
The world is full of deceitfulness, egocentric and perversion. Whatever jargon you come with, I don’t care. All I care is I have a bunch of great friends, close-knit of real genuine family members and I like them all. Maybe I would consider their counsel. The rest who are not in my list can keep their two cents worth for themselves. Really, it’s none of my business how you think.
My experience of people telling me to further my studies by their strong suggestion on which field of academic I should opt for, what I should do for a living or what car I should drive around is nothing but silly, selfish, and a sign of jealousy. It makes me think you’re not all that secure or confident about your own choices. Worship however you please – or not. Drive any kind of vehicle you want. Find a life partner for your children, scrutinize your own family moral obligation before you pass remarks or criticism onto others. It’s none of my business what you do or think. But the moment you trespass into my territory, I can make you regret by showing the ugly picture of your life.
Oh dear. Speaking of discrepancy – that’s really the only thing I despise. Do what you want. Let others do the same. Live your own life, and don’t throw stones unless you’re perfect, yourself. That would, of course, be nobody. They can be good at few things but I don’t think they are master of all trades to judge my capabilities.

All these while, I have been silently absorbing these sneers. Had I not been so polite I might have given them a piece of my mind (occasionally I can be blunt), but I don't think I would be quiet all the time. Over the years, I have grown up experiencing this shameful attitude and I know at my worse, I can be blatantly rude. My parents thought me to be courteous but
I told them at times I need to step out of my courtesy veil to put a stop to this gibberish.

When I hear these people still go all-out to poke their noses into our life, I thought to myself, “What a shame these people don’t have a life possibly or maybe they simply can’t be happy with their own lives’. Amusingly they don’t feel ashamed ever and it makes me salute them for taking huge effort to still stick their nose into our butts. Probably it is just the way they are born and that’s what these guys are best at.

I don’t think it is that difficult to be happy and busy with their life. All they need to do is “MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS”

Now I know why the traffic is better

Apparently its school holidays now. Well, no wonder I was surprised to see the traffic flow is fairly smooth than usual. I used to leave the house for work at 7am and end up getting wedged in the traffic jam caused by the peak school hours. The road I am taking to hit the highway has a few schools and a market which daily gets me sitting there in jam for about 30 minutes. Its rush hour for parents sending their kids to school, teachers making their way to work and also other office employees like us battling through the congestion just to reach their office in time.

At times, school holidays do something good for office employees like me by making our lives to commute to work with so much of ease (but it's not always the case, at times school holidays can worsen the traffic too).

Today I reached office earlier than usual. And I am in pleasant mood despite not having good sleep last night, even before I’ve had my morning coffee. I am just keeping my fingers crossed to have a jam-free drive back home today after office hours.

I just hope KL-Seremban Highway will be smooth after work hours today!

Euphoric Moments

Isn’t it a boon for us if we could celebrate birthday of our loved ones together? It was the best birthday gift I can ask for. My hubby and myself are born just 2 days apart (year of birth is different of course). What? Many of my friends and even family are surprised to know the fact we are both February babies and celebrating our birthdays one after another. Raj’s birthday falls on the 7th whilst mine is on the 9th of February. This year, both our birthdays was extra special because we both just tied our knots and were on honeymoon.

The travel agency that we booked for our honeymoon in Bali made a sweet surprise by treating us with a beautiful sunset view for our eyes and tantalizing our taste buds with delicious seafood at Jimbaran Bay. It was the best birthday celebration I’ve ever had. Sunset is the one of the most magnificent panorama of God’s creation, which we tend to take for granted.

I and Raj loves the beauty of nature. Raj has stunned me with his fascination towards love of nature once when he actually brought me to gaze the full moon and its shadow over the ocean in Penang. That was when I realized we both share the similar passion.

It was a memorable moment to capture the splendor of nature as the Sun began it’s descend across the beautiful ocean watched by hundreds of onlookers sitting comfortably along the shores while savoring on the welcome drinks offered by the restaurant. The magical moments was more precious with the presence of local Balinese bands singing away famous melodious English songs to entertain the sunset spectators from all walks of life. Everyone was there for a simple reason; to admire the brilliant sunset.

I don’t know about the rest, but for me it was a euphoric moment for me to be holding hands with the man I love so much and watching the performance of nature. It was spectacular in sight to see the bright hues of sun gradually vanishing into the twilight of darkness.
It was so surreal. And I am still dreaming. I and Raj planned for a comeback to this place for more romantic getaways. I know the best is yet to come.

Make every day Women’s Day

Its March 8 today! It is the time of the year again for us to celebrate International Women’s Day; a day devoted to remember women all over the world to honor their accomplishments and who have inspired the world over the years globally. I know this note is just in time to give recognition to the much celebrated womanhood (I am one of them too!). As a women, I believe our entire lives consists ultimately of accepting ourselves as we are. And what we are is powerful, unique and blessed. Hence, March 8, should be made a remarkable occasion and celebrate the best way for the women in our life and also being proud of being one. Today and every day, call to appreciate their sacrifices. Women of the world – Hats off to you!

I don’t think it matters as to how we celebrate the day but what really matters how far we appreciate and acknowledge women as a whole and for their capabilities, abilities, passion and sacrifices. Women have indeed come a long way. Reflecting back on how far women have come in their struggle for equality, harmony and development, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women, inspire me. I feel incredibly inspiring to be part of this gender.

Women should never be discriminated and looked down nobody is above anyone. As women, we should be prepared to be beautiful in all that we do - walking, talking, working, whatever it is you do. The women of today have special talents and are more independent, courageous and smart enough to carry out things herself. In fact, they even make better bosses than men as they are capable to stand parallel with today’s men. Famous women in history have proven that, way before our era. Being women is never a disgrace, it is a gift! It is great to be a woman.

We need to show the men that being gentle does not mean any less powerful. Our femininity is not making us any less capable. A woman can always be pretty while contributing to the world. We now have the luxury of coming out loud and bold to face the world at our own choice compared to our grandmother’s time. Liberalization of women has gone a long way in making women stronger, sharper and smarter. Rising up from housewives to corporate positions and politicians, women today have gone a long way to show the world that we are indeed women of substance and a stiff competitor to men. Today, we can choose.

Hope this will put a stop to chauvinist remarks like, “What do you expect? She’s only a woman”.
Today is not only a celebration in honor of women’s revolution but also a time to restore women to their rightful place. Women’s voices in the world should be heard more. It is not just women activist, politicians or celebrities that we want to hear from; we want to hear from other women who also lead our lives, articulate their thoughts more cleverly than we can imagine. I truly admire stalwarts in the likes of Ambiga Seenivasan, Marina Mahathir and Ivy Josiah whose strong, confident voices can be heard and felt. But we need more. Funny, angry, loving, crazy, and patient voices to tell the world, “Hello, we are here”.

I get baffled sometimes. I have always been true to myself and do what I believe is right or wrong defined doctrine of life. But will the people around me socially accept me as I am? Being women of substance in this community was never easy. Is anybody really comfortable with a strong woman, even when she is standing up for what she believes in, fighting for truth, equality, and justice? It is difficult to live our principles but we need to follow our gut instincts and go for what we believe is right. Believe it and you will see it.

The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures”. Happy International Women’s Day 2012. Let is shine in grace!

March Madness

I must admit that February went by very quickly! There is about February that it has become my darling of the year. This year February etched a place in my heart with the sweetest events unfolded so gracefully. The symphony of beautiful chorus still jingles in my ears. Well, reality has a knack to put some sense into my little head that February has come to an end. But the lasting memories created will be lingering in my thoughts for time to come (it will be more special than before since it holds many memoirs). What I’m likely to get from this month in near future, will be a month filled with a series of birthday bash, celebrations of love, reminiscence of our splendor wedding reception etc etc etc. Awww… I am missing it a little too much.
Party’s over!
It’s March now. I am slowly tweaking up to my ‘new’ work environment. No, no, no! I didn’t change jobs by the way. During my wedding leave, some re-shuffling of organization structure and project realignment took place. I knew about, the re-shuffling effort way before I was off for my nuptials. My director gave us some hint weeks before that we will be having new colleagues from SDRC to be filling into our workspace. Moreover, a series of potential key projects are in-store for the existing molecular markers team (That’s a nightmare to me!).
So here I am now, re-christened as molecular breeding team with new designation (no more scientist anymore, we were re-designated as biotechnologist. Sounds more sensible and fits the academic background that we come from). It is of great relieve to me now that I don’t need to hesitate to exchange my business cards in future (At least I don’t get the ooohhhhs and ahhhhhss when they get to know that I am a ‘scientist’ by profession).
The line-ups of new research projects are a great gateway for career development and enrich my CV with more research aptitude. Certainly it looks promising and exciting to me. Unraveling the complexity of oil palm genome through the various OMICS is something we are embarking on here at Sime Darby (Well, talking about work reminds me I have SOP documentation, proposal for my project and prepare training materials for my new employees. Oh gosh!)
This is not all that I have to do. My family will be relocating to a new house. Moving house is a terrifying thought. It seems like a good sign for a brand new start for all of us. A new hope of life awaiting for us. In another 2 weeks time, we would have moved into our new house and time for house makeover!
March will be a busy month for me! Madness of March is yet to reach the brim.