The babies Chronicles:Aragorn & Gimly

A while back, I promised to post some pix of the new babies of Horny. There was a delay because:
1. I was still recovering from Shaggy's MIA that looking at another kitten's pix was torture.
2. One of the babies died, probably because one of the adult cats killed him.
3. Horny ran away with the 2 remaining babies,only to pop up behind the house.

After much thought, I decided to let them roam free at the back and give them food when they're hungry. The babies really like that small carpet...it's where they fall asleep when they're full (or as we always say:kenyang kebuntat!).

More to come...

Mobile blogging...

This is sent from my Sony Ericsson hp...I'm just giving this mobile blogging a try to see if this work.Didn't work at first with my other phone,though...ishk.Thinx would work better with a qwerty keypad handphone (yes,Linda...Ur phone has qwerty keypad).Since I don't have one, I'll make use of what i have lah.Hehe.Fingers crossed...

Weight Watch

I've been struggling with my weight for the last...hmmm, let me see now - I'm 33 this year, so it would be 13 years...yeps, been having weight issues for the past 13 years. Actually it's not my weight I'm worried about, it's just the flabs all over my body that's a wee bit disturbing to me. I just feel uncomfortable with the "spare tire" I'm carrying around my waist. Heh.

I've been generally a wee bit on the skinny side throughout my childhood, putting on a little bit of weight when I finished school but eventually losing it when I entered college. I'm skinny with not much muscle definition though, so people usually consider me a lightweight. When I went to UK for studies, the 1st year there I lost even more weight which alarmed my mother when she saw me during a visit. It's nothing serious, I just don't know how to cook actually. Heh. A diet of instant noodles would do that for you. Hah!

In the 2nd year, after some collection of recipes from my mum and a crash course in basic cooking from my brother, I managed to honed my cooking skills. Which basically involves throwing everything into the pan and fry it to perfection! Hehe. If I have people over, I would either cook spaghetti or roasted chicken (or chicken bake as my soon to be wife would call it). And as you guessed it, there's a lot of cheese involved in those spaghetti meals and a lot of meaty portions in them chicken bake. I ballooned to double my size in year 1, that when I landed back in Malaysia, my mum couldn't recognize me! Hehe.

Over the years, I've tried to lose weight, made a lot of resolutions; tried a lot of methods: jogging, lifting weights, kickboxing. My weight would yo-yo between these periods, sometimes I would lose weight only to put it on a few months later. I did however, manage to lose enough weight so that I could look good during my wedding. :-) Marriage has been blessed in a sense that my meals are taken care of by my wife (thanx ayang!) and for me, everything she cooked is delicious! So my weight again ballooned up to uncontrollable proportions. Shirts and pants kept on being too small for me, so I kept on buying bigger clothes. The last straw was the fact that I tore my favorite jeans because it couldn't handle my size and the punishment I meted out to the fabric.

I'm lucky in a sense that a gym was opened at the workplace by this time, and hence started my journey to lose weight and basically try to maintain a healthy looking body. It was a tough challenge. The most successful period so far was between August 2007 to March 2008. In March 2007, I weighed my heaviest (officially), which is 98kg (216pounds). I do believe that I've weighed significantly more than this, but this is the official weight recorded by the gym trainer. Throughout the time, I made a pact with myself that I would try to maintain my attendance to the gym, control what I eat and basically just live a healthy lifestyle. It wasn't easy though, nothing happened for the first few months. So, the trainer suggested lowering my rice intake, to lower my carbs intake. Within 2 months of doing that, while maintaining my gym attendance, I managed to lose 20kg (44pounds). My lowest recorded weight so far is 78kg (171pounds), which is still a few steps away from my ideal weight.

But I lost the rhythm, I'm not so sure why, but my schedule just went haywire mid 2008. What was supposed to be the next step to build a better body, became a "war" to just keep myself motivated to come to the gym. I've put on weight, lose it again, and put it back on throughout this time, up until now. I now weighed 85kg (187pounds) and have been maintaining that for the last few months. I must have hit a plateau, as the trainer predicted, and I have to find a way to keep myself motivated to come to the gym. I don't think my greatest challenge is coming to the gym, since it's located at my workplace and since I spent most of the time here, I'm sure I can drop by the gym anytime during weekdays. The greatest challenge so far has been to keep eating healthy food! And it's so hard to find those here (yeah, yeah...excuses, excuses) but I'm determined to find a way to eat healthy!

People wonder why I go to the gym regularly...it's not because I want to become a body builder, I just want a healthier lean body. And to feel comfortable with it, and not to be out of breath when climbing up the stairs (!). I feel uncomfortable with the flabbiness, and I need to burn it off. My target is not for everyone; as long as you feel comfortable with your body, there's nothing other people can say otherwise. I don't feel comfortable with my body, so I need to do something about it.

Let's hope for the best, and keep your fingers crossed!

Pekerjaan anda yang sepatutnya quiz

I took a funny quiz on facebook the other day...funny in a sense that within 8 questions, the quiz was supposed to give the answer to our dreams. "Pekerjaan anda yang sepatutnya" quiz gave me an even funnier answer: Pelakon (actor). I laughed out hard when it came out. But the description of why the result came out gave me room for thought:

Pelakon: Anda memang suka berlakon.Kawan kawan memang tak tahu watak sebenar anda kerana anda kerap berubah mengikut situasi.kadang kadang anda boleh ketawa tapi dalam masa yang sama menangis.

Roughly translated, it said "Actor: You like to act. Your friends do not know your actual/real character as you change with situations. Sometimes you laugh but at the same time you cry."

When I told my wife about the result, her reply was : "doesn't that sums you up perfectly, ayang?" I scratched my head at that reply...wasn't so sure I wanted to believe a simple quiz and vague answer. But looking back at the answer...yes, it does sum me up a bit. Not the actor part (!), just the parts where it said I change my character with the situations. And the part where it said I laugh but cry at the same time.

I've got a broad range of friends, from all sorts of different backgrounds, which sometimes astound people. I have friends which are polar opposites of each other, could never mix with each other but friends with me. There are times I'm the messenger or middle man between these polar opposites (!). It's hard to explain it, but I guess I'm used to adapt myself to different sorts of people and I am a very, very tolerant person. :-)

Yes, I do hide my feelings. What I am thinking, what's in my mind, my thoughts I put it out most of the time. But my feelings, I hide it underneath. There's no specific reasons, I've never thought about it so much, but my best guess is because of my upbringing. For me, I feel that even when I have problems, no matter how big or small, my problems are insignificant or trivial as compared to others. No matter how I feel, I believe that my feelings are not as important as the feelings of others, which I try very much not to hurt. I know I hurt people's feelings sometimes (I'm not perfect), but I give it a try...always.

And hence, the "mask"...the acting part. I believe people enjoy my company because I make them feel good, and that makes them happy. No matter how down or unhappy I am, I would give it my best to keep others happy. In a sense, I guess, there's that hope in me that when other people are happy, those happiness will rub on me and I could feel the happiness and lessen those negative feelings that I would have. Hey, it's like what they say about karma - what goes around, comes around. Or as they say about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Cheerios!

Dugaan...

It hasn't been the best of times these past few weeks. Bad news keep cropping up every now and then. Let me just list some of it, so that I can at least lessen the burden in my head and heart by writing it down.

No.1 - My mum & cancer
FYI, my mum has been battling cancer for the past 6 years plus, going in and out of the hospital for as long as that time. Surgeries, biopsies, radiotherapy, chemotherapy etc...I've lost count of how many of these treatments she's gone through for all those years, there were so many (!). And don't start with the amount of medication that she's taking - every time she comes back from the hospital it seems as if she had just gone grocery shopping with the amount of plastic bags she brought back.

The 1st week of March, I brought her to the eye hospital after she complained that she can't see certain things at certain angle. The doctor said there's nothing wrong with the eye, and must have been something wrong with the nerves in her brain. I fear for the worse. She was scheduled to see the oncologist 2 weeks after that and she brought the eye doctor's report with her. They did a brain scan on her, and found some cancer cells at the base of her brain. Cue emergency radiotherapy on the brain.

After 5 rounds of the emergency treatment, she's now back home, to return for another scan in about 3 weeks time. She came back with bags of medication, of which there was some confusion as to what was to be taken when, because there were too many. On top of all that, for the past few months she lost most of her weight since she has little to no appetite. She weighs about 35kg now. That's less than half of my weight (!)

No.2 My wife & chicken pox
Yeps...you read that right. My wife contracted chicken pox a few days before my mum was admitted to hospital. She never had it before when she was a child, so it was only a matter of time that she's gonna get it. It just happened to be on the week my mum was hospitalized. My in laws who happened to be in Putrajaya that weekend decided to bring my wife back for treatment and recovery, which I am thankful. If she had stayed with me in Shah Alam, no one would be able to take care of her if I go to work. It's been almost 2 weeks that she's away from me.

I miss her. A whole lot.

No. 3 The Neo & the suicidal monkey
Okay...here's where it gets very frustrating...on my way to a photography assignment (my very first one)...I hit a monkey. With my wife's Neo. Adehs.

Here's the summary: I was on my way back from Melaka, after visiting my wife (there, up there...I told you kan she got chicken pox) and heading towards Cyberjaya. I took the Elite highway since it's the safest route I know. Safest meaning that's the junction I know I won't get lost. Heh. Anyways, after the Cyberjaya toll gate, as I was celebrating the fact that I'm still keeping a good time schedule that day, I saw a monkey jumping on the divider. As soon as I thought "hey, monkey!"...he jumped in front of the car. In a split second I swerved, narrowly missing the divider (I was driving on the right lane) and heard a loud thump in front of the car. As I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw the lifeless body of the monkey rolling along the road.

When I came down to check the car, the bumper was badly damaged (yes, Proton engineers take note: them bumpers ain't that strong - buck up your ideas). I can hear something leaking, but as I checked it was not the radiator and I suspected that it was the A/C. Figuring that I couldn't do anything about it until later in the day, I continued on my journey to my assignment, shaken but still managed to get a few shots.

And for those wondering how much the repair costs...let's just say I won't be adding to my camera gears' collection anytime soon.

Summary
Despite all that, I've managed to keep myself busy. Work is a pain in the ass, though. But photography is what's keeping me sane these days. At least I've got the chance to go to one of my first photography workshop. Short but fun. I hope I can go to more of these, it's not just the facilitator that's good, the other participants are not that bad too.

I've been shuttling myself between going to work and the workshop; visiting my mum in hospital and my wife in Melaka; house in Shah Alam and parents' house in PJ for the last week or so. It has been a busy week but a lonely one at that since I'm used to having my wife around with me. And I need her with me, now than ever.

My mum has always been strong. She's the strongest person I know, the strongest amongst us. The doctors are still amazed at how she is able to stave off the cancer for this long despite it's mutations and spread throughout her body. It has been a long and courageous battle, and only God knows how painful it is for her. It may have weaken her body, but not her spirit. At least, until now... As I was having dinner with her on Tuesday night, she turned to me, looked me in the eyes and said " I don't think I have 3 weeks..."

My heart sank.