Jadi, selamat hari jadi tanahair aku tersayang. Selamat hari jadi Malaysia.

The 50th year of Malaysia was a very meaningful year for the land of my birth. The winds of change are sweeping the nation, and I am extremely proud of my countrymen whom I credit with this revolution of sorts. Last year I did not have any reason to celebrate Malaysia’s birthday, but this year I can proudly say I am flying the Jalur Gemilang, Malaysia’s flay.

So happy birthday my beloved country. Happy Birthday Malaysia.

Sempena perayaan merdeka minggu ini, saya akan memblog dengan Bahasa Malaysia. Ini bukan satu latihan yang senang - walaupun di zaman sekolah saya selalu memperolehi markah baik untuk BM. Sekarang, selepas 10 tahun saya tidak bisa mengarang atau memikir dalam BM, saya memperlu sekurang kurang 5 minit untuk mengarang satu ayat. Lagi selapas ini saya kena menterjermah balik ke bahasa inggeris. Malangnya.

PS: Walaupun karangan saya dalam bahasa melayu sudah terlampau merosot, saya masih petah mencakap dalam bm.

In light of Malaysia’s Independence day this weekend, I have decided to start blogging in Malay. This is not an easy excercise - even though I used to get good marks in school for my Malay. Now, after a 10 year absence of not writing or thinking in Malay, I need at least 5 minutes to write a sentence. And have to translate it to English. Poor thing.

After ten years of not writing or thinking in malay, I realise that there has been changes to many words….to english. My favourite example is monolog, realpolitik, conspiracy and inspiration..even though most of them have a word in malay to describe them.

Right, enough of my monolog. This few paragraphs have taken up 15 minutes. In English it usually takes me about 3. So, now that my dear readers agree with my malfunctioning malay, I am going to try to blog in malay more often.

PS: Even though my writing is absolutely horrible, I can actually still speak pretty well in malay.

No, not uploaded my 500 pix from my trips in July yet, but here are some pictures - with me in them, which is a first! Yes, just something to distract you from my traumatic turnmoil

A giant candy

On the London Eye flight - my second time. I forsee this to be another KL Towers trip - where I had been about 10 times due to visitors ect. I must say, how perfect was it for a London Eye trip with the fluffy white clouds. Unlike my freezing, cloudy and depressing trip in 2005

At the river Thames - I love just hanging out by the river and people watch. No, I wasn’t trying to pose, the wind keeps blowing my hair on my face. |My tshirt says Vegetarians Tastes Better. Hehe

Another one to add to my London Underground collection. I love love it…wished I could just close a station down one day and just take pictures in it….its just so…as the chinese love songs would put it, very feel ah

…and everything’s still the same.

I won’t even bother apologizing, I think it’s quite understandable why I have not been blogging and my feelings at this moment in time. In the past two weeks I’ve had more conversations with myself than I care to remember. Nothing’s more fun than soul-searching conversations with yourself thinking about your immediate future and long-term plans and strategies on how to get there.

A slight update on the jobfront. They have the guts to offer me my assistant’s job. My immediate response to my boss was, ” Are they taking the fucking piss??”. And rightly so. Even boss agreed with me. I don’t think by me accepting the assistant’s job I would be doing myself any favours. I think I have done enough back-pedalling and swimming on the spot in the past three years. With the assistant’s job, there are no reduction of jobscope; they will still be getting the amount and quality of work that I am currently producing .The only loser in this situation would have been myself if I were to accept that. Obviously there is the usual HR spiel of how my job’s been reevaluated. They know that I love working with the company and would do ‘nearly’ anything to stay in it, therefore the outrageous offer. Well, this is where the buck stops. Take that demotion and shove it.

Which brings me to my self-conversations. In the bath, in the bus, whilst walking, watching tv, sleeping…

I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason. And this, I believe, is a kick up my ass. God’s way of a slap in the face. I knew that I wasn’t going to stay in this career forever, I may enjoy it, but I knew that it would only have lasted until mid next year. Now maybe it’s the time for me to do something that I want to do and will keep my interest for at least a couple of years. I’ve looked at retraining, explored other options. I don’t want to go back to doing what I have already lost interest in doing, and I guess this is a good time to move that direction.

All will become clear next week when we are given official notice that they have not been able to place me and will therefore wait for a month before giving me my redundancy notice. At the moment, anything can happen, but I am not putting much trust in it turning out to be a good outcome for me. Which is really ok. Yes, really.

Following the problems in the sub-prime lending market in America and the run on Northern Rock Building Society in the UK, uncertainty has now hit Japan .

In the last 7 days Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

**hmm…I wonder which one is my company??**

Joen Jovan Goh E-Sern was born at 4.25am on 7th August 2008 at Mercy Hospital, Melbourne.

Look at his beautiful angelina jolie lips!!! And of course, the trademark Tey nose ;). Apparently he is thin and long, just like his big bro. Just spoke to Daddy who is doing well, ableit slightly toolan (pissed off) with the hospital. Here’s hoping that Joen continues to grow up big and strong, just like his smelly brother. And no colic this time .

Notice anything funny about the house above? Well, it is close enough to where I live to be classed as a ‘neighbour’. The cops had been there in the past couple of days, breaking through the door and upstairs windows. There’s even been a photographer taking pictures of the cops posing outside - and a huge skip which was covered up. Strange, as I did not think that cops were involved in house cleanup excercises. Been searching local news sites for a couple of days, and found this today:

A CANNABIS factory was discovered after police raided a house in Leeds.

Plants and equipment used to cultivate the drug were seized after police hammered down the door of the property on Dolphin Lane. No one was inside the house but officers were confronted by a Rotweiller dog on guard inside.

The house, which has a CCTV camera fitted above the front door, was still cordoned-off yesterday as officers continued to search the premises. Engineers were also called to cut off the electricity supply to the house. No arrests have yet been made in connection with the discovery on Wednesday evening.

A neighbour said she did not know who owned the house. She added: “During the past couple of years I have seen Chinese people coming and going from the house but they don’t speak to anyone. “It’s a quiet area around here and people tend to mind their own business.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman confirmed that a raid on the property took place at 10pm on Wednesday.

Yes, yours truly just rushed out with her trusty cameraphone and snapped this picture about 5 minutes ago. Hurried back as I realised that I might quickly become a suspect in this very chinese minority area