Confused

I was thinking this during my daily 10 minute pumping ritual in the office.

The government wants to abolish PPMSI (learning science and maths in English). But everyday we see English words Malay-fied. For example, capacitor is kapasitor, inquest is inkues. classic is klasik, lyrics is lirik.

Our alleged mother-tongue language is being butchered by the day.

So what's the point?

On another note, yesterday 'Aatikah pulled herself up to a standing position without any assistance except for gripping Sa'eed's table with her death-grip. I was nearby so I put tons of pillows around her, anticipating her fall. She did fall flat on her face (on the pillow) because she couldn't balance herself while happily holding her prize (the ASTRO remote) from on top of the table.

She was shocked for a second or two but quickly recovered and proceeded to play with the remote.

Sa'eed on the other hand, is bilingual...hahaha.

Scenario: Sa'eed wanted to sit at his table to eat. This conversation below is all Sa'eed, talking to himself.

"Mamam...mamam"

"Wait...wait" while pointing finger, gesturing to wait, while I put his plate down.

"Duduk"

"Sit"

"MMmmmm...nyam nyam nyam"

Hahaha...funny boy.

Now's the time to imitate

I think Sa'eed just recently found his voice. His vocab has grown by leaps and bounds (although not conversing or stringing sentences yet, rilek la beb). He likes to imitate words now, so we gotta be extra careful in what we say....not that we swear freely in the house, but still..

But I still can't figure out what go-ji is...whether it is roti or kunci.

Wah wah wah

Yesterday 'Aatikah turned 9 months. I was cooking in the kitchen while she was in the living room with Sa'eed and their Tok Nyang. Suddenly 'Aatikah went 'maaaa-mam...maaa-mam'.

Wah wah wah...pandai kau nak mintak makan ye.

So I gave her some rice with soup. Even while eating she kept on saying maaa-mam...maaa-mam. Dua mangkuk (baby size of course) habis licin dia makan.

And because 'Aatikah was eating, Sa'eed also asked for food (1st dinner). Then when Abah was eating, he asked for food again (2nd dinner), and when Nyang was eating, he asked for food yet again (3rd dinner).

Whoaaa

Hrmm...first things first...

Welcome to the world little Syed Daniel! Syed Daniel is my cousin's (Rizal & Nafisah) 3rd kid. Hey guys, when you get number 4, please don't name him/her anything that starts with an 'S'. I don't want to state the obvious but Adam, Imran, Daniel spells A-I-D with their initials...heh

On the home front, 'Aatikah is getting bigger by the minute. She can commando crawl pretty well now. Last night when I was busy cooking, Sa'eed wanted to have the freshly made fried noodles although he just had dinner an hour before. I didn't have time to really watch him eat, so I just put the noodles is a bowl and asked him to go eat in front. And of course he HAD to eat right in front of 'Aatikah.

'Aatikah being 'Aatikah headed directly to Sa'eed's bowl and Sa'eed being Sa'eed terus menggelabah. So I put him and his bowl on his IKEA table so that he can eat in peace. Then the little girl started crying because she wanted what her brother was having. I had tons of things left to do because we were expecting a guest. So I just left her there (with Abah in sight). Nangis punye nangis and she commando crawled to the kitchen. Half way she gave up and Abah saved her from the torture.

If food is not in the picture, Sa'eed can be quite the big brother. I can leave them together to play and Sa'eed will be more than happy to layan 'Aatikah with games of chak chak or randomly hand her things to play with. If Sa'eed gets bored and looks for me (most of the time I'd be in the kitchen), all it takes is for me to say "Sa'eed, mana adik? Adik tengah buat apa tu? Pergi tengok kejap". And most of the time he'd saunter back to the living room while saying "diiiikk....diiiiikkkk...hahhahahaha...dikkkk"

Ok, one random thought. In my company, there are plenty of ladies who are around 40-ish who aren't married yet. Yesterday I ran into one and a thought struck me.

"Mesti loaded kan dia ni...bestnye. She can live wherever she wants. Her savings must be huuuuge"

But then another thought struck me.

"But who would she spend the money on? Anak2 pun takde...."

Hmmmmm......

Too close for comfort!

Oh my oh my.

A guy on the 35th floor of my building has been confirmed with H1N1. And apparently he had a meeting on my floor. But some are saying it's the floor above.

But anyways, a friend of mine on my floor was in close contact with him when they bumped into each other in the elevator. This friend of mine is currently sneezing etc and has gotten an MC for 2 days.

So yes, yours truly will be getting a bunch of hand-sanitizers during lunch.

And it pays to have a friend who's father is the Asst. Health DG. She said that this flu is like 'any other flu'. But is deadly to people who has pre-existing illnesses that compromise their immune systems, old people with weak immune systems and kids with not yet matured immune systems. And once infected, it takes up to a week for symptoms to show (hence the one week quarantine for suspected cases).

The treatment is the same for normal flu. The only reason you need to be quarantined is to help contain the spread. So far, patients admitted and subsequently discharged to the Hospital for quarantine since Case #1 has been certified with a clean bill of health.

So please have the courtesy to sneeze or cough onto a tissue and dispose of it properly.

Kiddies

Sa'eed

The lil boy is coughing and has a slight fever. Usually he would just lie down and won't even bother his sister. But he gets all cheery and excited whenever I offer him egg.

My mother-in-law recently bought an IKEA stool for him. The next day my grandma bought an IKEA table to match it. Sa'eed is thoroughly enjoying both items. Sometimes he would put the stool by the windows, sit on the stool while looking outside.

His vocab is definitely expanding. He knows alphabets when he sees them, but gets them confused. Main tibai je mana A, mana R.

If he's doing his business, he will say uk-uk. But if he's not done and I try to take his pants off to wash him, he'll struggle like mad. Hmmm....is this an opportune time to potty train?

'Aatikah

This girl is getting spunkier by the minute. She can commando crawl and is starting to heave her self up while holding on to a chair or Sa'eed's table. She can also walk while holding on to the sofa (and of course with someone holding her hips). She's also learning how to use the straw. She can get the water into her mouth, but she'll splutter some out.

And all this happened in one weekend...phewwww.

How alternative energy changes lives

I was in Tanzania, Africa a couple years ago over the summer working on a solar project. This particular post is about a small village area in Bagamoyo. To get to Bagamoyo from town (Dar-es-salaam) was a couple of hours and to get from the center of Bagamoyo to the village area was a couple hours more. I remembered the road (if you can call it a road) to be very extremely bumpy.

When I got there, I could see a couple of girls carrying buckets of water on their heads. If you look at the picture, the girl is actually carrying a baby tub on top of a bucket. They walk from their huts to a small watering hole twice a day to get water. Each trip probably last an hour.

The picture above is what their huts look like. I've been told that because it is made out of mud, after a while it gets 'holey' and snakes tend to come in uninvited.

Hmm...so what is this structure? Looks like a regular water tower you find in more modern housing areas. And that's exactly what it is. The government gave some funds to some people to build this thing to store water so that it could be distributed to the surrounding households.

How do they get the water in the tank? Via water pumps pumping water from the underground source (aquifer).

The above picture shows the water source. The pump is close by. Since the village is not connected to the grid, the only way to get the pump to work is by using alternative energy.

And in this case, they chose solar panels. We did the testing on that day and everything seemed to work ok. The pump had enough horsepower to pipe the water up into the tank and the piping network from the tank was working too. So the people in the village only had to open a tap and water would be flowing.

It might not matter to us coz we are so used to having water whenever we wanted it, but to them, this small effort is worth so much more. Now the girls won't have to walk to and fro for long hours just to get water.

But I bet the small kids would continue going to the water hole to bathe (read: dangerously dive) just because they can :)

I am the party poop-er

Ada ka, this penguin pooped right when I was snapping this pic. But the most tak tahan thing is that the penguin pooped while nuzzling with its girlfriend.