Oxymoron In The Tropics

Began wrapping the Christmas gifts... ya, I know, Fr. Nick was thumping the pulpit two Sundays ago saying Christmas isn't about presents.  Well, the presents may not be a religious part but they sure as heck are one of the most important cultural parts! And as happens every year, as I fit the paper to the gift and cut the tape just right, memories come flooding in.  I've wrapped all sorts of gifts; gifts for siblings, gifts for student Christmases, gifts of hope .. and all kinds of feelings are associated with these Christmas gifts.  Gifts in my family aren't the super expensive type.  They are meant to show that someone's thinking of them... I've had the most fun looking for unusual or quirky gifts.  But I have never managed to master the art of choosing gifts for men.  I usually fall back on stuff like socks, shirts and hankies.  I think the males in my family are swimming in the stuff.  But I do so like to shop for gifts......

Was reading a magazine (Personal Money). Interesting article about income tax. 4 Things To Do Before 2007 1. Add up all the book receipts for 2006 till it comes up to RM700. If not, go buy some more so you can get the max deduction. 2. Been thinking of insurance? Well, my life insurance + EPF is way over maximum so no need to top up. But my medical insurance is still only around RM2000. And I don't really need any more. 3. Medical check up? I can deduct RM500 for this. Hmm, actually I really do need this. Ponder ponder ponder.... 4. Tax residence planning? Non applicable. Hey, I can do Thing No. 1 while I do springcleaning, right? Thing No. 3 can swirl around in my head.. but I wanna nag the hubby to go get one. I kinda want him around for at least a half century more...

This is going to be a great Christmas cos I'm no longer in the office! When I was a teacher in La Salle, I'd start on the Christmas cards and gifts in mid November (right after school closes!). Polish up the necessaries like hair, bod, clothes ... clean up the spirituals (reflection and repentance.. lots of that.. heh heh!). Then it would be time to do spring cleaning (the most amazing bit would be scrubbing the driveway with soap and water!), dig up the Christmas tree and decorations, strings of lights..wrapping christmas gifts and hiding them. Someone would remember the carollers' visit at the last minute so we'd rush to bake cakes and buy packet drinks. Oh we had fun. Then I moved to the office. Urgggh. November would mean lots of meetings in KL or Malacca or Terengganu where I'd hear lots of carols in the shopping malls and gaze at huge (don't touch!) Christmas trees in hotel lobbies. At night, I'd be crunching numbers in Excel which would be a her...

I officially reported for duty to Pn Rafidah the principal of SMK Kolombong on the Ist of December 2006.  First impressions: d*** big school, friendly but work-minded new boss.  Good. Cos some people focus too much on chit chat and the canteen.  I think I'm gonna like it there. But then again, I'm a very flexible person.  I can adapt to almost any situation.  Unless my very safety is threatened.  Then it's time to run!  So now my mind is geared towards school and plans and targets and analysis... 2007 is going to be a great year.

Today I walked around my car sitting in the garage and did a ruthless inventory. Paint's still okay though rubber trims are already no longer rubbery. Too many years exposed to the sun. Plastic bits are already crumbly at the edges... time to replace. Cushion covers need replacing too. Some rusting spots and of course there's the skewed whatchamacalit that I need to replace that's causing my car to prefer to move to the left rather than straight ahead on the road. But that whatchamacalit is going to cost me at least five hundred of my precious little ringgits. But I shouldn't complain cos I did that to the car when I hit the bridge. Heh. Time to replace the car? But the engine's still good ... most of the major bits are still working fine. And whenever I think of blowing a five-digit sum on an asset (not!) that depreciates the moment you buy it, I always back away. I've never bought a brand new car.. it's always been a secondhand car for me and I do...

The first time I learned about HTML code, I was already in my mid20's and my tutor was a 16-year-old who treated code with as much ease as she did her schoolbag and textbooks.  Familiar story huh?  But I wanted so badly to have my own webpages.  Sara was my key to those webpages.  Lucky she was accommodating. I went on to more complicated stuff and had the greatest fun.  But I found myself a fish out of water.  Or is it a fish on land?  There I was using email, setting up websites... even now, I am blogging and just set up a tagboard.  But the majority of my IRL friends (same age and common interests) don't do the Internet.  They don't email and they don't get what a blog is about.  Worse, I keep setting up emailboxes for them and they keep losing their passwords.  Some are okay.  But they don't do Internet communication. So my blog's not so much for communication... it's more for my personal records.  The funny thing is m...

31st of October 2006 was a big red-letter day for SK Kipovo, Penampang. For the Director General of Education, his five deputies and twenty plus directors all descended upon the pretty rural school. SK Kipovo's one of the schools involved in a projek rintis for the I-Board technology (basically converts a whiteboard into a touchscreen) and the synergy between the teachers, the students and the technology there is good enough to get the DG to drag all his big guns all the way from Putrajaya to Penampang. So on the last day of October, officers swarmed all over SK Kipovo, the visitors to see what the technology was all about and the local education officers to smooth the way the path the very AIR in and around the school. I was the 'lucky' creature assigned the MC job. Do it well, you sleep well at night. Do it badly... hmmm, better start pondering alternative work choices. No lah.. ha ha .. just joking. But an MC can make or break a function. Say the wrong thing or me...