To my elder girl, he is the BEST-LOOKING guy in this whole wide world. Her everything Pattinson craze has been going on for a while and I never understood why, until last December ....... I finally got curious when she was watching Twilight for the 10,000th time. I joined her. Initially I was bored but when the perfect in an eerie manner Pattinson appeared I transformed into an excited teenager and became more excited than my tween! When the movie ended, I told my daughter, "Erica, let's watch one more time!". She was beaming with the "I told you so" look. We ended up watching three rounds of Twilight and two rounds of New Moon. I had a smashing time....... Â...

Recently, my girls' school organized a Jog-A-Thon hoping to raise MYR250,000. The funds are required to change the school's decade-old air conditioners as well as upgrade their close to obsolete computer laboratory. I wrote emails to the "top guys" at  major Malaysian listed companies, appealing for their support. Honestly I did not expect any response from them. Why should they right? Donating funds to a stranger during such economic conditions? What was I thinking? Many a times my mind and imagination tend to dash-off to an over-run. To my close friends, this would be another of those instances again. I dare not share my bizarre "project" with them. I do not wan...

Since young both my girls love animals very much. They would get very excited whenever the opportunity arises for them to visit the zoo. As both my husband and I are not animal fans, they rely on school trips, and visits from family and friends. As they grow older, they started to negotiate visits to wildlife parks and/or farmstays when we travel overseas, as their reward for doing well in their school exams or in exchange for a month of washing toilets at home. I still have not figured out where their love for animals came from, as I am someone who would scream my head off whenever I see a cat, dog, et cetera. Before we got into Perth, my younger girl (the mo...

My younger daughter celebrated her 8th birthday last Saturday. A week before that, she came to me and said, "Mummy, you don't need to get me any birthday presents this year. I just don't want to go for my tuition class, and  don't want to do any schoolwork on that day. All I want to do is to chill out, uninterrupted in my room." I was amused by her request but was at the same time quite concerned. She flatly refused my offer to bring her for a short beach holiday (she loves the beach) as a present. When I suggested a poolside birthday party, she politely rejected it as well. Even the latest figurine of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens did not help. Has school taken o...

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands during challenge and controversy"  - Martin Luther King Jr - This post was written two weeks ago but I just couldn't find the time to complete it cos I was totally stressed-out settling my girls back to a new school term. All three of us were depressed, waking up early for school was difficult for them (and for me as well), completing daily schoolwork was slower than normal, losing many hours of TV and play time caused daily mood swings, etc, etc. When our friends heard about Erica, my elder girl's recent trip to Outward Bound School (OBS), many of th...

We were 5 minutes late to the BBQ nite, on the eve of the closing ceremony for CAC 69 (Children's Adventure Camp No. 69) at Outward Bound School in Malaysia, a chartered member of Outward Bound International, in UK. As we hurried to the hall we heard the following, "When I came to OBS, I thought......."  *we missed the introduction of her speech* "Sounds like Erica, huh? Can't be, she sounds so confident? But it looks like her...... just a little darker...." David and I stood at the hall staring and admiring the very confident girl delivering her speech to a 300+ audience consisting of participants and parents. We were confused because she looks and sounds very ...