Living with Sarah

Alhamdulillah, I managed to finish up proof-reading and reviewing files that we translated for this insurance annual report 2 days before the deadline. As usual kalau buat translation work - my back and bum will be sore due to sitting too long! We worked round the clock since last week, over the weekend, right till yesterday. So, to celebrate - took Aliyah out for the Snow White movie. Just Mommy and Aliyah. Abahnya got errands to do, so he sent and the fetched us. And one good thing of having GSC Alamanda nearby is that we can just pop-in at 11.30am and still get tickets for 12.15pm show despite today being the first day. There were these 2 seats at the top yang macam dah reserve je for us both :). The movie - susah nak kata. I don't really have it at the back of my mind so that means it didn't give me any impact. Macam try very hard to be like LOTR pun ada. The Queen shouted too much for my liking. And Show White - for someone who said she can't handle a knife (ie killi...

Aliyah and I - we are both fans of Smash. The story is actually just so-so (and can sometimes be eye-brow rising - like seriously?) but the songs are simply amazing. Last night's show gave us another beautiful song and Aliyah loves it. Kelas tak taste anak aku kan? Broadway gitu!

Our Eecah is seriously one lazy cat. Aliyah's first task for the school holidays - get Eecah to exercise! Tak berjaya pun...

I really need to write about this. Because these past weeks saw problems flying all over - too much for such a small company like ours. I can handle all if I wish to, but then what's the use of having people around? So I let problems be solved. Most of the times, impatiently. Yes, very impatiently, especially when I have the answers at the tip of my tongue. One thing that I have in me that I believe got passed down from my father is being able (well, not all the time) to identify the root of a problem. My father is a historian in his own rights. Whenever he speaks of anything - politics, current issues, etc, he would look at them from their roots. For example, if he speaks of the royal lineage of a state, he would recite the history of the royal family right from the start. If he talks about certain successful public figure, he would give the accounts of the figure's road to success eg the family background, education, etc. I have always respected that kind of thinking. I alw...

Remembering my pitching session, I realised that I was the only woman among the 4 companies that came for the morning session. Those who came were all men, while the panel has only 2 women in the team. I reflected on my journey - from my days at my previous company till now. This industry is a man's world. It is actually tough for me. But I guess, it shaped me to be what I am today. I remember one meeting I attended at my previous company (while we were still small and a fun place to work!) - it was a meeting for all Team Heads to discuss a tender and as usual I was always the only female. While waiting for all to come, the guys openly "mengumpat" a couple of female top managers. As always when it comes to women, it's always something like "marah-marah aku, period la tu kot, boss perempuan memang macam tu, emosional...". After a few minutes of looking at them open-mouthed, I said, "Ehem, ehem, I am a woman". They looked at me and said, "No...

Ok, the pitching is over. The experience? Something slightly new. Some what different from our usual sebutharga or tender presentation. But not totally different. I guess we were as prepared as we can be - which translates to "not really!". I presented the slides while Hubby did the prototype demo. The panel consisted of about 10-12 people from various industries and agencies. There were reps from Astro, Time, Finas and a few more. And guess what, the rep from this telco was an ex-colleague! A good friend. Alhamdulillah... managed to sit and chat for a few minutes before the session started. We received opinions and comments. I guess we managed to answer all. On those that we couldn't (due to lack of info) the only thing I could say was that - "this is something new, there are still things that we don't know, but it shouldn't stop us from exploring it. We believe this is the way forward for interactive contents and we believe we are on the right path"....

I didn't procrastinate in preparing slides for the pitch. I started early. It's just that all these stuff keep coming into my way. That situation has finally been resolved. Alhamdulillah... But it took a lot of effort. Then re-working on last year's accounts. Seriously, do I need to do everything around here? Going through line by line of all the worksheets? And pointing errors? And finding where the error is? And getting - 'sorry, silap kira', 'sorry silap type', 'sorry, tukar kat sana tapi lupa nak tukar kat sini'. One day I should say - 'sorry, lupa bayar gaji'. So, I'm working on my slides in between all such stuff. And it is so tiring. I've never pitched before. So, I really don't know what to expect. There is this list of the items that needs to be presented. So, I'm working on that besides trying not to be so "straight forward". Maybe we should be different. But then, I'm sure the panels will have this f...

It has been such a "heavy" week. My heart being heavy that is. I had Plans A - E for this situation we are facing. A situation that if the powers that be are human enough, they would help people like me. After all - the salary they receive promptly every month comes from the contribution of people like me. But - nope. They follow the book because it is "easy". They can finish their work every day and go back home. Whereas, people like me who contribute and pay for their salary has to work day and night. I pray to Allah for assistance to help me out. I tried taking a loan but funny that financial institutions don't seem to like SMEs. They love full-time workers even though their salary can be below RM3000. And these financial institutions give them loans of what - 10 times their salary. Whereas, SMEs like me has to prove that we can get at least RM50k of income per month for at least 6 months to get a mere loan of RM8k. Look, if we have RM50k in our account eve...

After almost 1.5 years, we finally received the invite for pitching for this idea we submitted to an agency yesterday. We actually got the call late last year (so that's about 1 year after submission). The agency visited our office, advised on areas to revise and waited for us to resubmit. However, I deferred submitting our revised proposal because by then, the new brilliant idea we had had already become "not a really new and brilliant idea" anymore. Seriously, technology moves that fast. I waited and waited and waited... Despite many efforts, I couldn't put myself to resubmit. Rasa berat sangat nak hantar. But then, a chance meet with Caspian to discuss a project led him to show me this app on iPad that he's considering developing. A light bulb then shined brightly on my head. That's it! That's it! That's what we will do. So I revised the proposal taking a 360 degrees turn. The platform is different, the direction is different, the contents and con...

I actually heard this on the radio on Sunday. Masa tu tengah dengar Sinar FM. And I can't get the song off my head since then. It was popular during my school days. Masa Form 2 kot. Such simple song with good vocals. Of course, singers during that time have good vocals. Unlike nowadays yang anybody and everybody can be singers. It's by Wheels. There's another one by them which I really like - Dalam Kenangan. Punyalah sedih dengar lagu ni lepas SPM and dah separated from friends masa kat asrama dulu. Anyway, I found this live version sang by the original singer. Suara sama je. Still excellent. I tengah hiburkan hati lepas penat buat sebutharga.

Memang terasa akan diduga dan memang seperti yang dijangka... This is not the first time. That sebutharga we are participating - briefing was on Wednesday, we contacted 3 partners on Thursday to invite to participate together. One kept quiet till Friday (and even till today), one was so eager but till now we have not received even a quote from him, the last one took too long to get back to us. My cut off time was 4pm, I extended but I prepared for the worst - already did the pricing but there were still "holes" in the checklist that needed technical expertise. Finally at 6.30pm, Hubby said that guy will email in 1-2 hours time. I immediately revert to Plan B - did our own research and filled up the technical section. I received the info from him at 6.58pm - by then I decided that this guy might not be the partner we would like to work with. I wonder why we keep on experiencing this. We have never done this to other people. And it is really frustrating. Tapi, kalau project ...

Ever since dah subscribe to Unifi ni, I actually dah kurang sikit tengok Astro. But need to give way for Aliyah to watch her favourite shows. Yang I still watch on Astro are Diva Universal channel - Smash, Covert Affairs; and AFC and TLC. Others - not really. Like I said before, HyppTV are not so great either but even with lesser channels, at least they have varieties. And it's really refreshing to watch other shows other than the ones being forcefully shown to us. On HyppTV, I love Red channel - the wonderful Japanese, Korean and Chinese movies. And now, I found another channel that I really enjoy - iConcerts. I love live music even though not much opportunities to watch real ones. Imagine - live concerts 24x7 - nice or what! And I got to catch Bryan Adam's Live at Slane Castle last week. Awesome! Such amazing voice...

I'm really not good at letting go and forgetting, no matter how much I try. These few months have been very peaceful. I have come to terms - that I redha with all that have happened. The only thing I can do is to provide them with sedekah of ayat-ayat after solat and the few bucks whenever possible to charity with prayer that the pahala will go to them. But once in a while some stories come to my ears and really disrupt the peace. And my heart will ache. The stories are mostly stuff that some people are going around telling... tell story here, tell story there, untrue stories, make-up stories, assumption stories which are all sickening and most of the times sad to hear. The world is round my dears and not everybody seems to be the people you think they are. So, stories do come back to our ears. However, we are honorable people, so we don't do as such. We can only smile and say - whatever, Allah is Great. This morning is about "harta". It was an old issue, but yes, i...

We went east to Kuantan yesterday for a sebutharga briefing. It's for a system development. Too big for us. Our partner senyap je, I guess we have to do it alone and if Allah grants us the project, then we find resources. Maybe have to go again to submit the proposal. Adoi, penat (even this time around Hubby did all the driving!). It was raining like crazy on the way back - that made the trip very tiring. The briefing was chaired by the Penolong Ketua Setiausaha I've known ever since we started doing translation work with the agency. It amazed me that he remembers my name even though we meet like once a year. As usual during tea is the best time to get to know the latest. Managed to korek-korek some interesting facts. This time around the scenery was beautiful - the trees were all deep green compared to our last trip. I saw a few places in the forest being cleared with lorries carrying timber. Should be legal logging la because too close to the highway, but we never know...