A letter from the headmaster

Years ago, I would use all my wit and charm and find out from my college administrator at my boarding school when exactly they are posting my annual marks card and report to my home. If my parents ever saw my school report, they would have got an easy ticket to heaven. There was a time my maths teacher gave me -2/100. She said 0 didn’t justify my score. bad score also meant less allowance from home..When you are already under “low income” budget, sending mu annual report to my parents is akin to suicide. The only way was to bribe the postman so he would give me the letter addressed to my parents. I was good at forging my dad’s signature(He still doesn’t know). A week later, I would bribe the postman again and give him the forged report card addressed to my principal in an old envelope with stamps taken from the letters my family send me.( The school principal would check everything to make sure that the report card is indeed signed by the parents. So I couldn’t take a risk with the stamps!!!).
Anyway true to the adage that you can’t fool all the people all the time, I did get caught in my final year, when one of my classmate’s parents visited my mother and discussed the report card..And my mom asked”what report card?” followed by me getting grounded for a long while..
Yesterday there was a letter addressed to my daughter from the school. I looked at the letter with suspicion, after all she is my daughter and I know what I am guilty of. Kind of what goes around comes around. I was a bit scared to open the letter. So instead of opening I asked her, what is all this about. She replied “How should I know?” . She didn’t look least bit worried and my heart was going on a jolly ride.I was really worried, What did a 7 year old do in school to get a letter from the principal?? All my past sins flashed across my mind. I honestly didn’t want to open the letter. I said a novena and kind of barter traded with the creator. I promised I will repent all my sins if my child doesn’t get suspended from school. With trepidation I opened the letter
It was a congratulatory letter from the principal. She apparently did so well in school. The best student in grade 2… And to think that her mother got 0/100 most of the time and spend half her life in the detention room and the other half writing imposition in hundrerds..

Announcing the arrival of Liza..our fourth one!!

Here I am writing my blog on the 2 nd day of Chinese Newyear and I have happy news for all of you. We have a fourth member in our family. She is Liza, a chirpy happy Budgie.
We adopted her from a Grey haven pet sanctuary. She is one of the many birds abandoned and rescued. She is light blue and grey coloured, about 7 months old.
She is a fiesty, chirpy bird. My son chose her.She has a life span of 20 years and hopefully will be with us till the end. She likes to eat lettuce and coriander leaves. Learing to perch on our hand… hopefully will speak soon as well.
Grey Haven is located at 4490 – 152nd Street · Surrey BC · Canada · (604) 878-7212 · info@greyhaven.bc.ca. www.greyhaven.bc.ca

They have many birds apart from budgies. Adoption from a pet sanctuary helps the birds, as they are not bred to earn income, and no new bird is added to replace the one that has been adopted.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

On this Chinese New Year, May all your dreams come true, may you live your life and not just passing through, May you find joy,and see the silver lining in your darkest hours.
Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni…

Curse of being a female

Years ago when I visited India, there was an ad on TV that shows, how families give more food for their sons and leftovers for their daughters. The reason is simple.. the daughter goes to some other famiy after she gets married, whle the son stays home and work in the fields.. why waste money on a daughter. The ad was trying to show how biased we are to our woman.
I remember my indignation then and I couldn’t believe parents can treat their kids differently. Two xx doesn’t mean less food.
Few days ago, my neighbour’s kids(girls) came to play to our house. we were just having our lunch and I asked them to join us. We had rice, gravy and chicken nuggets, and they asked me if they can have extra nuggets and I said ofcourse. One of the girls then said to me” aunty you are so nice, my grandma makes nuggets only for my brother”
These kids are Canadians(of indian origin), Their parents were born here.yet the cutural crap still binds them. You are never free of sexual bias.. even if you are well educated and live in a bungalow worth more than half a million dollars.

Breakfast in bed

I was really lucky this weekend. I got breakfast in bed. at 6 Am on sunday the older one woke me up from my sleep and asked me where I keep the coffee, five minutes later, how much sugar she needs to put, followed by is it the big spoon or the small one, followed by do i need to use the hazelnut coffee mate or the other one, few mints later, how long do i need to zap the water in the microwave..
her brother made peanut butter bread (generous amount of peanut butter!!!)
and the baby, she got cookies for me( ofcourse from the cookie tin)
Result: the best coffee made with love and affection by a 7 year old, nice sandwich and cookies and a happy mother
Sometimes when life overwhelms you, there are little joys.. and the heart is happy for those cherished moments…

once in a life time

once in a life time
you meet someone
truly remarkable
you think it is
for ever
he is not your boy friend
yet he is everything
he stood by you
he loves you
you love him
not as a boy friend
not as a friend
not as a brother
you love him
just for what he is
not for your tomorrows
not for the future you could have
with him
you love him
for he is beyond the present
he was never the past
he was never the future
he was someone
life brings you
when you are sinking
a hope, a light, a ray of sunshine
and now he is slowly slipping away
in to the horizon
and I am still standing.. alone

When it rains it pours

Just heard from my best friend that he has type B lymphoma..
He is too young to be having a malignant cancer.. He is my best friend. He is supposed to be around me, to share my joys and provide the shoulder when i am upset.He has been my rock all this while and I really don’t know what I should do?
I have just lost my uncle and now will be losing my best friend as well..life sucks big time

Canadian election

I am amazed. I remember the last general election in Malaysia. All the ads on TV and newspaper were from the ruling party. Opposition party didn’t even have a chance to advertise in the public media. It is a perverted kind of excuse. Ruling party by way of winning and governing considers to be the custodian of public media.
Here in Canada, there is hope. all the parties can advertise in the media. There is never a thought of injustice.
I have never voted in Malaysia. never had the chance to. In Malaysia I was supposed to register with the EC when I change the address. I never did. Some how I didn’t have the heart to change the place of address in my IC even though I lived most of my life far away from the kampong. My village has always been the address on my ic.
I don’t know much about the Canadian parties. One thing I know for sure, it is indeed a fair election. People have the right to choice, unlike in Malaysia where most of the non muslims have to chose between the islamic party with their talibanizing attitude or the moderate party with their corruption. Canadians are lucky… they have democracy.. We in Malaysia have “the crazy” government

My unlce passed away on christmas day

My ever concerned mother thought it is better that I be not told about his death,lest i get worried and fall ill. Her justification,”you live in Canada,on the other side of the planet,we can’t even take a plane and be with you on the same day, if anything happens to you”
So here I am, 26 days after my unlce passed away, yesterday while speaking to my mother, she casually mentioned “oh by the way your uncle passed away on christmas morning.”
I feel numb..
In my 3 decades of life on planet earth, I have never been to a funeral, except for my grand ma, no one i know in my family has died until now. Death of a family memeber is not ever thought of. Some how every one was invinsible. Until now.
Every single philosopher said that life is too short and i knew it. Still it didn’t make the connection that people i loved most won’t be around every day of my life.
My fondest memory of my unlce is his blue car and his drunken state. He was the only person i know who could be stoned drunk and still drive. He never had any accident, neither did he have any liver. He had cirrhosis. He knew another drop of alcohol would shorten his life another day. But he could never divorce his lovely companion. Alcohol and he were together since he was 17 years old.
He knew he was dying, yet he chose to drink. Perhaps he thought he has sung the song he was meant to sing. His kids have flown out of the nest and settled in life in their own way. Perhaps there was nothing much to achieve.
I think, now I won’t have much to do with his family. He was the link. He is gone. I suddenly don’t know how to relate to my cousins. I grew up with them, played with them, laughed with them and this morning I don’t know what to tell them. I am hesitant to even call them. In my mind they became strangers. That is odd.. does death end family connections?

Things I want to do before i die

years ago, one Amway dealer came to my house and tried to enrol me in to Amway. His first question was, what is my dream? I couldn’t answer right away. and he prompted, a ferrari car? an all paid vacation to Australia? a bungalow?
It was weird.. I didn’t really have any dreams when it came to money. I probably had the cocoon syndrome. Happy where I am. and money couldn’t buy more happiness. The amway guy shook his head as to how pathetic I am.. that I don’t even have any dreams.Fortunately he didn’t force me to join Amway, cause they sell dreams and I didn’t fit the criteria.
Yesterday someone asked me what are the things I would like to do before I die.
That got me in to thinking.here is my list

1. travel across Canada
2. watch northern lights
3. Learn to ski
4. travel the entire silk route
5. have enough courage and meet my father and tell him, what exactly I felt, when he
left us.
6. Teach the kids to do good and do no harm
7. I would like to see a racially tolerant Malaysia
8. Go back to my kampong and buy a small atap house and lots of land, near a stream,creek what ever.. do farming.
That is it.. see how boring my dreams are??