It's my turn

I will be voting for the first time come 5 May this year.

I am very excited about it.

All along, I have been apathetic about the politics in my own country, especially when I don't know anything about it.

All I know is, when Dr Mahathir stepped down, it was also the day Malaysia was on its way to doom.

It was what I had believed, and what I still believe.

I have great admiration for Dr Mahathir. He is the only person I know who dared to verbally retaliate LKY.

When LKY said that Dr Mahathir was trying to have the Prime Minister's seat for himself for as long as he could, Dr Mahathir replied that it was not as bad as someone who was waiting for his son to take over.

My admiration for him grew when he decided to retire from politics, saying that he also needed time for his grandchildren and family.

He did not need to hold onto the throne till the day he died.

He retired with a smile.

I believe that he had done what he could, as far as a man's strength could stretch, for Malaysia.

How much can a man do if the majority of the country does not want to improve?

Ignorant as I am about Malaysia politics, I have experienced for myself how corrupted the government is. Four months after the signing of paper to relinquish the shophouse and the promised reimbursement is still not banked in, when they had promised to bank in within 1 or 2 weeks!

Horrible, horrible.

I can even smell 'corruption' from Singaproe.

Like what some Singaporeans have done, I also want to vote right.

Happy 13th, my teen!

It's her 13th birthday, a celebration of her teenhood.

This year, she chose to celebrate with her friends in school, but she did not forget us, her family and aunties. She asked me to get her a cake so that she could celebrate it with us too.

My wish for my little lady:

to become wiser as she grows,

to better manage her time for work and for play

to be brave and assertive

to dare to dream

Fly, my child, fly!

The Promised Land

Coco is a huge Harry Potter fan. She read her first Harry Potter book when she was seven. After that, it was no turning-back for her. She devoured the rest of the books and watched every single Harry Potter movie. She would write down all the magic chants and practise them with her cousin while holding a make-believe wand.

Some time this time last year, I made a solemn promise to her, that if she could get 250 and above for her T-score, I would take her to the Harry Potter Studio in London.

She took the opportunity to ask me,"Can we go Paris too?"

I replied,"Yes. I would go bankrupt celebrating if you get 250 and above."

It is not without struggles that I decided on this coming June trip.

Firstly, I have just returned to work after 9 months of no-pay leave. A Europe trip to London and Paris would poke a big hole in my pocket for sure.

The sensible Coco understood this and agreed to postpone the trip, maybe to next June.

But I decided that we should just go this year, because I really have no idea what would happen next year. Besides, we 'hibernate' during December as year end is too cold to travel for me for most countries. I was already freezing when we went to Shanghai during its cold and wet summer. I really just wanted to stay indoors but that would be stupid during travelling.

There are other reasons but in any case, I made up my mind to do it the Nike way.

So I have:

1) booked the hotels (London, Disneyland, Paris)
2) booked the flights
3) booked Eurostar tickets from London to Disneyland

I am left with:

1) booking the Harry Potter tickets
2) booking the Effiel Tower tickets
3) planning the itinerary, especially the one for Paris
4) finding out the route for each place or attraction
5) budgeting for the trip
6) buying travel insurance
7) picking up simple French

I will be taking Baby along too - a mission that is not without a fair share of trepidation.

I am not sure if she could take the long hours of flight, and how robust she is to endure a 5-day trip in Paris after the Disneyland experience.

Read about horrific attempted child-abduction, scams, pick-pocketing and robberies in broad daylight in Paris after I had booked everything. And the French police are as ineffective as, if not more ineffective than, the police in some developing countries. They simply laughed in the tourist's face when an extortion happened right in front of their eyes. Hotel staff told the tourists that there was no need to report to the police since robberies were a common sight. And locals do not trust the police.

I didn't know that Paris has become so unsafe. All I ever heard about Paris was its beauty and charm.

For a petite Asian Chinese woman and two young kids, I can only pray that we would be invisible to the crooks.

The first DVDs we rented

We were so excited at the prospect of playing DVDs on a blu-ray player and watching them on a huge TV that we went out to get some to watch. Sua-kus are like that, you see. Everything must try.

Life of Pi was 'boring like hell'. Firstly, I was shocked that the main character is an indian guy. I thought the guy on the trailer was just tanned from being exposed to ultra-violet rays. Then, it didn't begin with an adventure to somewhere. It is about a boy who is pissed with being nicknamed 'pee-sing' and he resortd to educate his peers and teachers about his self-created shortened name 'Pi' at the first day of a new school year.

Then it is about his family education which occurs at dinner time almost all the time.

After that, his family begins sailing to ... another country to start their new life for some reason I cannot recall, and a storm shipwrecks the ship and he is the only survivor, with a tiger he tries very hard to tame.

And most of the story is about his being on the boat, waiting, thinking and strategising his survival despite the tiger.

The movie tries to be spectacular at the sea scene. There are scenes of armies of luminous jellyfish that do not sting Pi, a humpback whale performing a breach and giving a mighty splash ... I am sure there are others, just that I can't recall. See? How forgettable the movie is!

It's like an old-people movie. Reminiscing about the past. Eeks!

Rapunzel was comparatively entertaining. I enjoyed watching the movie-quality DVD show alot, except that the disc was a little faulty! No pixelation unlike the standard-definition TCS shows.

I told William perhaps we could now stay home and watch rented DVDs!