Hodge Podge

I turned 30 at the end of last month, and Nuaim turned 2 on the same day.

Nuaim, Nu'man and I were staying at my in-laws in Alor Star on my birthday. We were treated to a wonderful cheesecake from Secret Recipe, which was the first cheesecake I've had since 6 pm on 6th April 2004 (that probably helped Nu'man along his way to the big wide world outside my womb). The next day, we drove back to KL and reached Mak's house just after dinner, where another sinfully delicious chocolaty cake of the same company was waiting for us. Nuaim was too scared to blow out the candles on his own. He kept calling them 'bunga api', probably because they reminded him of the fireworks during the SUKMA opening ceremony.

We didn't have time to throw him a proper party, as it was a hectic 3-day weekend with all the travelling to, from and around Kelantan for a relative's wedding. There were cousins, nieces and nephews I hadn't met in ages, so much so that I had a terrible time recalling all their names. Hey, when you've got 45 cousins, some of whom have doubled their own offspring since the last time you saw them, what are the chances of being able to tell them all apart?

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to talk about was this: turning 30.

It's supposed to be a semi-major milestone, a precursor to life begins at 40 (when youth ends, I'd like to add). One can no longer blame the raging hormones of a twenty-something for any dodgy decisions or actions. I heard on Radio IKIM some time ago (and it's about the only thing I've ever heard on radio that really sticks to mind), that when we die and the Day of Reckoning is upon us, the only years that matter are the first 40 years of our lives. So whatever worthy cause or act should have already been over and done with before life even begins. That means I've got 10 years left to make up for and outweigh all the bad and inconsequential stuff I've done in the past. And since I'm no angel and definitely not a saint, not all of the remaining 10 years of youth is going to be well spent either.

So it's good to reflect on the past 30 years and figure out whether I've got what it takes to tip the scales towards the good side of average.

For the life (and afterlife) of me, though, everything I've ever achieved seem to be only for worldly ends. I consistently got good grades, earned a much coveted scholarship to study in the UK, and graduated with top class honours. Got a good stable job, got a house, a car, got married and have two kids.

Applause. Well done. Pat myself on the back.

But what really counts? Things I have, or how I treat what I have? Especially the family bit. I love them all really, but I do wish I treat them better. Be more polite, loving, affectionate, patient and caring. Learn to bite my tongue when my words could very well end up biting their hearts (which, unfortunately, they almost always do). To accept and give unconditionally. I'm an easy person to fall in love with, but terrible to live with.

So my birthday resolution is this: for the next 10 years - and beyond, I shall be the most wonderful wife, mother, daughter, sister and citizen of the world I can be.

It's a shame that just as I realise this, Hubby finally got his wish to join an overseas project. He's leaving tomorrow and will be away for 60 days at least. How now?

In the midst of the World Cup, where other women cry foul over being substituted with football as their partners' constant companion, I am joining the ranks of the Sudan project widows...

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On a lighter note, here's a picture of Muhammad Nu'man, at the age of 2 months.

Little Wise Old Man

Yes, finally I habis pantang so can climb up the stairs to get to an online PC and blog here!

I gave birth to Muhammad Nu'man bin Mohamad Ariff weighing 3.24 kg and measuring 46 cm in length on 6th April, 2006 at 10.55 p.m.

He's almost exactly like Nuaim, but exactly half a kilo lighter, two inches shorter and more than a shade darker than his Abang Long. However, in 40 days and purely on breastmilk (yay!) Nu'man has grown into a larger than average size of 4.7 kg and 57 cm. At this rate he'll outgrow Nuaim in no time at all.

I call him The Wise Old Man as he seems to have a very calm demeanour. He hardly cries, doesn't demand much attention and coolly accepts whatever treatment he receives. As opposed to Abang Long Nuaim @ The Drama Queen.

More posts and pictures later.

It's my baby and I'll try if I want to...

So this is it. The final countdown has begun.

By this time tomorrow, InsyaAllah if everything goes well, I'll be holding my second son in my arms. And it'll be at the end of a journey with so many crossroads to choose from.

I started my leave yesterday. In the last week, my baby's growth has leapt from a smallish 2.4 kg to a 'just nice' 3 kg. Just to be sure that we covered all eventualities, my gynae did a measurement of my pelvis, then looked at me with a sceptical eye and said, "Are you a sportswoman?"

Turns out I have a narrow pelvis, about an opening of only 11 cm, which is actually the borderline size for a normal vaginal delivery. If Nuaim had insisted on coming out through normal channels instead of C-section, he would definitely have gotten stuck not even halfway through. As it is, with this pregnancy, now is the best time for me to deliver the baby. Doc advised me to go for a planned, induced labour. I told her I'll wait it out, at least till Wednesday. And that's tomorrow.

I had decided much earlier on a vaginal birth and for labour to start naturally instead of being induced. In the past few weeks, conditions seemed favourable for what people still call a 'normal' birth (as if having a C-section makes one a freak!). So despite not having to work anymore, I'm trying to keep myself busy and active. According to a colleague, that and eating loads of food helps to speed up the onset of labour. Eating for me is not a problem. And Hubby of course was ecstatic that a certain activity would also help to - ahem - 'dilate the cervix.' I was half-expecting (and hoping) for a 'show' in the middle of the night, but except for a certain heaviness in my lower abdomen, nothing's happened yet.

So yesterday, wishing that I didn't have to and telling myself it's only a backup plan, I called the hospital to book me in for tonight.

Right now I'm stuck between having to deal with two extreme 'mindsets'. Mak, who has never had a Caesarean (in fact Nuaim's delivery was the first in our family) wants me to go au naturel and wait for the labour to commence on its own. She also thinks my doctor is generally biased towards performing a C-section, regardless of the patient's condition; and that somehow getting labour induced is just going to lead to another surgery. I keep telling her that if I wait any longer, chances are the baby will be too big and I won't even be able to try for a vaginal birth, but somehow that reasoning seems to escape her.

MIL, on the other hand, delivered all 3 sons 'through the window', so I get more sympathy from her. I tell her that this is the best time for me to try for a normal delivery, so I really want to grab this window of opportunity, but we'll just have to wait and see how I get along tomorrow. She keeps telling me not to force myself if I feel I can't go through with it, that it's more important for both me and the baby to be safe.

Sometimes I wish I had planned to spend my confinement in Alor Setar instead of here, but there are too many things to deal with that actually requires me to be here.

And then, of course there's ... but we'll not talk about it here. Not yet, anyway.

Things are also getting pretty emotional between me and Nuaim now. He seems to be so clingy nowadays, and despite the fact that he's been spending nights away from me (to get him over his breastfeeding 'addiction') he still gets really upset when he wants to 'mamam' and I refuse him. Sometimes I give in, because I'm too tired of arguing and also because deep down inside I just want to be able to spoil him like everyone else does. After all, I am his mother, aren't I? I should be entitled to spoil him rotten like nobody's business if I want to.

Dear God, I so wish this thing will be over quickly and safely. I guess asking for everyone to be happy is too much, but just as long as I'm happy, boleh tak?

Arsenal did it again!

Arsenal 2 - Juventus 0.

Of course I didn't watch the game. After Arsenal managed to beat Real Madrid in the last round, I thought that was the best result they'd ever get this season. Having to face Juventus, who are almost sure to win the Italian league title this year, seemed too high a mountain to climb. Especially as we had to face former captain Vieira, who has been instrumental to Juve's current form.

So it came as a surprise when after dinner last night my sister (who's a big Juve fan, by the way) said something to the effect of, "Juve's finished. After 2-0 I don't know if they can come back."

The papers yesterday, of course, didn't get to cover the story in time, but finding out later is just as sweet.

The Workshop at the Saujana

As promised, a very long post on the Workshop in Subang, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Or read - what you get when you pay a management consultant exorbitant amounts of money to conduct a session where you have to do all the dirty work yourself.

When I checked in at the Main Hotel Lobby on Wednesday morning, I was told that my room would be at 'The Club' and I had to check in there instead. Ooh, sounds pretty exclusive. They had a car bring me round to the Club, which was located towards one end of the resort. I checked into a room which had a view of a landscape pool, with the lake in the distance. Having settled myself in, I called up the guy I was supposed to meet for the briefing.

We agreed to meet at the lounge, where he explained to me that all I had to do was 'interview' a member of the Top Management, get together with other similar interviewers and 'synthesise' our findings into a presentation back to the Big Boys (and a Lady). Oh, and watch some video set in the future which was supposed to be very impressive. The top guns had already been briefed about the interview, and it seemed as if they had quite a lot more to do over the next two days, so I was set for a quite relaxing stay here. Or so I thought.

I went back to my room, feeling really hungry, so I ordered a Hamburger and a pot of Milo that cost just under RM50. At 2.45 pm, as agreed, I made my way down to meet with the rest of the group. When I got there, I was told that the session was postponed to 4 pm, and the venue had changed. When we regrouped at the restaurant for the interview, we had to wait another hour before it was time to 'pick up' our partners in their briefing room.

I have to admit to panicking for a while, as I don't really recognise the Top Management except for maybe 3 or 4 persons. My partner was not one of these 3 or 4. Someone described him as wearing a coat and a red tie, but when we got to the room no one had a coat and tie on. Fortunately, he was sitting right next to someone else I knew, who promptly introduced us.

The interview went quite well. I hardly had to do any prompting, and before I knew it, the interview had ended. Then the tables were turned and I got interviewed instead, starting from where Iwork back to my schooling. As we walked back to the briefing room, the topic turned to my pregnancy. The small size of my tummy, hidden under the voluminous black abaya I was wearing, misled him into thinking that I was actually in the earlier stage. When I informed him I had 3 weeks to go, he seemed genuinely surprised that I was still up and about.

Anyway, because of the delay that afternoon, the 'synthesis' discussion took quite some time. I don't understand why they have to make us get into four groups, present each group's findings then combine into two and finally one list of findings, when everyone had pretty similar results. By the time we finished the list itself, it was almost time for dinner. We hardly had enough time to squeeze in Maghrib prayers, let alone take a nice long shower, before we had to turn up at the same interview venue for an Italian dinner.

The food itself was good, but I have to admit I wasn't very good company. I've always been really bad at making small talk. I mean, how do you speak to company VP's, especially when the topic was on BMW's and golf, two things I have never really had the pleasure of indulging in?

In a way I was glad when dinner was finally over, but we had to head back to our discussion room to devise a presentation format for the next day. It didn't help that the room's aircon wasn't working, and I really think we were not that productive considering the time and the location. Hubby and Nuaim had decided to come over to spend the night, but by the time I trudged back to my room, both of them were already dozing away. Nuaim slept soundly the whole night, in fact when he left with Hubby in the morning, he hadn't even laid eyes on me.

I was tired, sleepy and missed playing with my baby. I think I deserved to have a good cry, so I did.

When I made it downstairs to breakfast, I had my professional, confident face back on. We worked on our presentation, again in that really hot room, and didn't get to watch the video. Lunch was a hot and humid affair, despite having it indoors, and we were 'treated' to a speech by one of the consultant's big shots that, to my engineering mind, didn't offer anything concrete or tangible to take away as food for thought. I felt like a plant wilting in the heat, so just had to take a shower. This resulted in me being late for our last minute presentation dry run, and I wasn't really able to take in the last slides before we had to head off to do the presentation proper.

It could have been worse. No one told me that they decided to make do without the music, so when the slides came onscreen I thought it was just a technical test and I missed my cue for the narration. Fortunately things went smoothly enough, and my insipid attempt to wrap things up with a golf joke was warmly appreciated.

I was looking forward to checking out, going home and spending a couple of hours with Nuaim before heading back here for another dinner, but we weren't let off so easily. I suppose after the huge amount of money we must have paid them for the video, we were obliged to at least watch it.

It turned out to be a collection of 10 different scenes, all intertwined, set in 2010. The scenes were supposed to depict how things would (ideally) be like in the future, especially concerning Leadership and Performance Management. I was expecting a very hi-tech look a la 'Minority Report', with arms sweeping over virtual screens and retina scans, but the only difference was that everyone, despite having Asian names, spoke in an American accent. I was hungry and hot (temperature, not personality) and really couldn't be bothered to analyse all the stuff. My table kept making funny remarks about the people appearing in the video, which lasted a whole 2 hours.

Dinner that night was much more enjoyable. Knowing that it was finally over brought a huge sense of relief to me, and my dinner companions stuck to topics I could really appreciate. The waiter must be new, because he kept misreading all the non-verbal instructions (and misunderstood some verbal ones too) and I bet he actually hailed from mainland China, judging from his accent.

Hubby picked me up at 10, but when I reached Mak's house my in-laws were there, and I couldn't just excuse myself and go straight to bed. Add to that a restless son who wouldn't let me sleep and a busy weekend, it's no wonder I feel as knackered as I do today.

And I still haven't started on the Forum notes.

Any Time Now...

Almost everyone I bump into at the office keeps asking me the same question: "So when are you due?"

When I tell them my due date is 13th April, the response is always, "Oh, any time now then."

Seriously, I think they should put in the Project schedule as one of the major milestones: Senior Field Instrument Engineer EDD.

I had estimated that towards the end of March things would have slowed down for me at the office, leaving me with enough time on my hands to blog, and pick up where I left off with 'What to Expect when you're Expecting' (which is somewhere in month 4 or 5, so that's a lot to catch up). At my 36th week check-up the baby's already engaged in the pelvis with an estimated weight of 2.4 kg, much smaller than Nuaim was at that stage, but a good 600g up from the previous two weeks. A week later, the weight hasn't changed but my cervix has already dilated by 1 cm, probably due to the fact that I've been here, there and everywhere, much to the distress of everyone else around me.

Today, despite my resolve to work right up to 'Labour Day', I've decided to stay at home. Correction - Hubby decided I should stay at home and get some rest, so like the good wife I agreed to do his bidding.

It doesn't stop my mind from going into hyperdrive though.

I've realised that lately my body is having a really tough time catching up with my brain, especially with so much mental stimulation on offer. Which is probably the thing that lead me to this state of lethargy.

First of course, there was the yearly appraisal that gripped everyone in high fever. Everyone knows it takes no small amount of brainpower and creativity to make the most mundane task read like a really crucial contribution to the company's growth, just to ensure you get that extra salary increment and performance bonus. Never mind that it causes the real value-adding/ profit-making work to come to a standstill for the whole month of March. Finding the right balance between having multiple objectives (to make it look like you did a lot of work, therefore are indispensible) and having delivered a really outstanding job (after all, too many mediocre results ain't gonna get you an overall rating of 'Exceeding Expectations' in the end) is something I'm still trying to figure out, even after 4 review cycles. The thing is I'm proud of the little short-term things that I did, because I think I did them very well, whereas the longer-term jobs was just a matter of going through the motions for me. Although some may argue that my motions are better than most in my current grade. The only reason of course being that with the new job grade structure, despite two fast-track promotions in the past, I am now no different from a junior engineer who's only left uni a year ago.

Then there was the Project Managers' Forum at Marriott Putrajaya last week. I had already planned since a month ago to attend the Forum, partly via some encouragement from a very senior person who had roped me in to help prepare some speeches for the VIP's (now I know what Rob Lowe's character in 'The West Wing' feels like), and partly because I knew the project wouldn't mind me being absent for a few days, since most if not all my deliverables were already completed. Besides, you don't always get to stay in a really posh hotel on company expenses. What happened in the end though, was that I actually had to stay attentive throughout the Forum to jot down the important points of several speeches and presentations, to be compiled into some report.

Okaylah, whatever.

Anyway, in the week leading up to the Forum, I was assigned at the very last minute to the Technical Evaluation team for a package that I'm not entirely familiar with. Yeah, yeah, I know I helped to write the Evaluation criteria, but that was only because I was standing in for my LE at the time (and I made sure this was recorded in my appraisal) and my colleague who prepared the specs was overburdened with other work. In the end I don't know if my evaluation actually bears any great impact to who gets the job. It still wasn't finished when I left for Putrajaya, and I still have a couple of bids to look at. Plus the evaluation actually takes place in Tower 1.

As I was rushing across the skybridge on Friday 17th, I received an e-mail asking me to be in Subang Jaya for some sort of Management Offsite Session right after the Forum, subject 'to the (Company) President's final approval.' What? I may have to rush from Putrajaya to the other side of town, and you can't even decide whether you really need me to go or not? Add to that, my appraisal form had to be finalised by the very same day, and I was still chasing former Project Managers for a performance rating.

Fortunately, said PM also attended the Forum, so after a so-called 'Networking Dinner' where I sat with all-too-familiar faces, I was able to finalise the appraisal and send it off to the office via Hubby who consented to playing 'Mat Despatch'. Of course, this was after a Saturday which was half-spent playing a waiting game at the hospital for a 10-minute check-up, and ended with a visit to see a relative in Kajang who had to be hospitalised a week before her sister's engagement; and a Sunday when I wanted to relax but for Nuaim who, for some strange reason, stayed awake throughout the day despite waking up at 7 a.m, a Tumble Tots session at 10.30 and a swim around 4 pm after checking in at the Marriott. By Maghrib I was almost screaming my head off for Hubby to take him back to Mak's house like we planned, just so I didn't have to keep picking him up whenever he fell off the armchair after an attempt to play Superman. Hubby, of course, believes in letting Nuaim fall from high places so that he'll learn from consequences. What gives him that idea I'll never know, as he himself has never learnt to put on the seat belt or drive within the speed limit despite the numerous traffic summonses.

Anyway, the Forum itself was very good, there were some really amazing speakers (and even more brilliant session chairmen) but the hotel, I feel, has slackened somewhat.

I received the call on Monday evening confirming my selection for this Offsite workshop in Subang, and please can you attend the briefing on Tuesday afternoon? I tell them, in the politest way possible, that this was impossible, but that I'll see them on Wednesday morning instead since the session itself only starts on Wednesday afternoon.

So I did get to go home on Tuesday night, and despite my best intentions to make it to the office on Wednesday morning just to see how things were getting along without me, I decided to stay back home till 10 a.m. when I had to go off to the Saujana Resort in Subang.

Right, next is the Workshop. My mystery disappearance from the office that led everyone to thinking I had already started my maternity leave. For some reason I feel the need to write down every little detail of what happened while not disclosing several confidential issues, so bear with me. Or stop reading right now. But this is almost one week's worth of blogging so it's a very long post. Oh sod it, I'll just keep it as another entry.

The Glass is Half Full

Despite the company about to close and everyone around me being apprehensive about where they're all going, I can't help but feel optimistic about the future. Sure, people are reminiscing about the good old days, the friendships (and marriages) that have been formed along the way - and there is that sad feeling of course that everything you've worked for and dreamed of is not exactly working out the way you wanted it to be. But there's a great big world out there, even within the Group corporate structure, that's offering so many different opportunities. It's just a matter of looking at all the options available, and choosing which one suits you and your circumstances best.

Besides, after moaning and raging for the first few weeks, it is time to move on. One doesn't really expect to stay in the same place for years. But then again, a lot of senior people in the company have been there since day one about 13 years ago, so maybe that speaks for something. I suppose it was the nature of the job - being project-oriented, the work takes you to different places, working with different people (sometimes different nationalities) and of course there is always the outstation allowance that is so, so desirable to everyone else on the outside looking in.

But it's never been about the money for me (haha, I may be singing a different tune when I end up in Kerteh or Bintulu without that extra RM4000 a month), but always the experience of meeting people and learning something new every day. And that's something that's being offered to me on a plate at this moment.

So what's left to do? Carpe diem!