Life's Remains....

The vaccines are here... spelling the beginning of the end of Covid19... or at least we hope so. But, it is really just hope upon hope. Because, as vaccines are being spread (by health workers) in most parts of the world, we still hear of lockdowns happening here and there. And the virus is mutating. New strains are being discovered, having higher infectivity. I guess Covid wants to live just like any other living creature. My employer has announced that beginning this month (April 2021) everybody must come to work in the office. No more working from home. Which is OK. I mean (in case my boss reads this blog) I love my job but dread going through the traffic jams in the morning and then again in the evening. I miss the easy smooth drive to and from work during the MCO when I had to come to the office to sign some physical documents, but even during the CMCO and RMCO, when we are allowed to move around a bit more, the traffic build-up at roadblocks gave me a glimpse of things to come wh...

Change is the only constant in life.  This time last year I was just a father, and now I am also a father-in-law. And, God willing, by the beginning of next year I will be a grandfather. Things have been changing so fast for me that, sometimes, I feel there things in my life I forgot to attend to. And, sometimes I am frustrated that I am helpless to do anything to make things go the way I want it to be. It frustrates me to feel like a victim. I am not a victim. When my firstborn told me that she will be posted to Sabah, my heart sank. The furthest she had been away from me was when she decided that she wanted to rent an apartment in Kajang to be near her workplace, the Kajang Hospital. In my head, then, I tried to find a solution so she can stay at home and commute to work, but the work schedule as a houseman, her odd working hours (I never really got a grasp on it, "on-call" and "post-call" and tagging and clerking... ), we agreed that it is better and safer for he...

Today, my son got married. As relatives and friends congratulated me for gaining a daughter-in-law, my feelings are mixed. But, looking at him sitting on the dais with his new wife, I can't help but felt a loss. Or, more precisely, a feeling of losing him too soon. Suddenly, I felt that I haven't given him all he deserves from a father. I just felt I should have given him more... More love, more advice, more annoying anecdotes about life, more dad jokes. In spite of the brave front that I was showing... I am not sure I was ready to let him go. Not that he's going anywhere... but, I am no longer his sole source of fatherly love, fatherly advice, and fatherly embarrassments. Suddenly, I remember how he liked to push a plastic chair on the front porch when he was a toddler and his laughter at the sound it made. I remember him singing you are my sunshine while pooping when he comes home from kindergarten. I remember him begging us to take him to the beach in Langkawi becaus...

Just checked my EPF account, and I saw that they have created an "Akaun Warga Emas" for me. This account, apparently, is where my salary deductions will be placed from now on. I am grateful to Allah for the rezeki, but I now have one major concern. I am healthy, but not wealthy. Health is wealth, they say, but you will need to be wealthy to be healthy. Healthcare ain't cheap. Now, as I am still gainfully employed, my employer is forking out the expenses for my health care.  I still have five years to go, but, I have a kidney condition that requires me to take medications. If I do not have to see the doctor (which I have reduced the frequency from quarterly to half-yearly) the cost of the meds alone is about RM120 a month. That is if my kidney (I have only one functioning) does not deteriorate further. From, my calculation, I will have exhausted my EPF in 3 to 4 years, after I pay off all my liabilities to the bank. So, I now must find another source of income. P...

Spock, son of Sarek . Born: 2230.Died: 2263 (in alternate universe) aged 162 Vulcans , I assume, would be well into rebuilding their civilisation and restoring their culture on their new planet after  Nero  destroyed their home planet in 2258. Vulcans first came to Earth in April of 2063 when they detected the first-ever warp drive test flight piloted by Dr Zefram Cochrane . Our allegiance with them has contributed to the advancement of human technologies, which, in turn, have enabled interplanetary relations and the exploration of space —the final frontier . Legend has it that Vulcans were very emotional creatures, but their religion (although they do not refer to it as one), founded upon the teachings of the great philosopher Surak , forbids them to show emotion and to embrace logic. Humans will do well to adopt the teaching of Surak. Humans may not be as emotionally volatile as prehistoric Vulcans, but we would be better off if we could better control our emot...

Love and marriage, as the song goes, go together like horse and carriage. We all know that's not true. A horse, I would imagine, would prefer not being attached to anything. For the Malay woman, however, she is expected to find a husband before she reaches the age of 30. Much less in the olden days, when she would have been labelled a spinster if she were still unmarried by the time she reached 21. Things have changed; more women are income earners, and some do it better than men. However, the old aunts and uncles, as well as grand aunts and grand uncles, who spent most of their lives in the previous century, still ask the dreaded question, "When are you getting married?" Why do we get married? - It's sunnah, yes, but can a person not go to heaven if she or he does not ever get married? - To have babies? Bundles of joy? All they do is cry and poop. You have to feed them, take them to the baby doctor once in a while (which is getting more and more expensive...

1) Don't get into debt for things you can live without - Every time you want to spend money on a thing you cannot pay cash for, ask yourself this important question: Can I still breathe, eat, drink and have sex if I don't buy this thing? If the answer is YES, then don't take a loan to have it. Remember this: CREDIT CARDS are EVIL - they lull you in thinking you can afford something you don't need. 2) Don't get a job - getting a job means you put yourself in a false sense of security. You think all you have to do in life is breathe, eat, drink and have sex, then you poke your ATM card in the ATM machine and voila!! You have money to continue to breathe, eat, drink and have sex for another month. Create jobs and encourage your staff to be entrepreneurs. Don't just be a consumer. Be the supplier. 3) Don't worry about the future - you can't do anything about the future. In this age of the internet, things change faster than they did 20 years...