i shall not stop writing.

It has been a very tiring day today (Saturday)... all of us in the family had quite a full day, starting as early as 7.45am til almost 10pm just now and this toughcookie fell asleep unintentionally only to be sharply awaken by little jj who badly needed the attention from someone. Well, my 13-year old was busy on the net while daddy was engrossed with his PS3 and I guess the only fair thing to do was to wake mommy up as mommy will do anything to keep her happy.

I woke up, gave her the much deserved attention and passed her back to daddy while I finally get to do laundry at such a late hour. In a situation like this, we all do what we have to do, don't we?

Anyways, this got me to thinking about Mothers' Day tomorrow (or today, rather, as this post was drafted just before midnight prior to Mothers' Day). Now, whomever says that mommies are allowed the same benefit as those in employment during Labour Day? Which mommy can tell me if they really are granted an off day, like totally, 100% - no cleaning, no cooking, no tending to any members of the family, nothing... anyone?

It's never easy being a mom, and it is even more difficult to be a good mom....

A good mom doesn't just deliver a baby into the world and raise the baby up hoping that they'd be a successful person automatically... a good mom does much more beyond taking care of their kids. A good mom tends to the family, put everyone else's needs before hers, raise her children up well to be a human of strong character, tell them frankly if they have made a mistake so that they would be a better person and be sure to support them in times of need. A good mom would not be afraid to let her kids know who's boss yet allow her kids to develop into who they want to be even with some pressure put on them because she has experienced it all before and does not wish to have her kids go through life's tough lesson the hard way.

I am not sure how good of a mom I've been so far... but I do know that I've worked very hard to support my family even during those 7 years of life as a single mom, raising a child with ADHD and Dyslexia, so that I could afford the therapy bills and additional classes for my growing child's needs. I would so want to be a good mom but seeing how different my 13-year old is now that he's in a stage where his friends seem to be more important than family, I would want to learn how other moms with grown up sons handle their teenage needs and how tough it is to want to be firm and tough without putting too much pressure on them.

It's never an easy task being a parent, not just for a mom. But since I am on the topic of Mothers' Day, allow me to just indulge in my emotional rush via this form of expression that I know best - writing.

I think I started to fully appreciate my mom as my mom when I got my first child. I suddenly realised the sacrifices that she had to go through, especially having us kids who didn't necessarily made her entirely happy. Yes, she has her weaknesses where our personality clashes like nobody's business and yes, we had our heated moments back then. Heck, there were too many disagreements especially on my way of life, the decisions that I made and so forth that made our relationship a little tense at one point in time, but I've realised that she has not been a mother who's not good.

Having a teenage child and one baby who clings on me constantly, I realised that my mom, despite whatever situation we're in, would always not fail to remind me that she's my mother, so that I will never lose ground.

I realised that despite whatever challenges that went her way, she would never lose sight of her children, bring us all back into what's real, nags all she wants if she feels she needs to, make us hate being in that situation if the situation calls for it yet at the end of the day, we all know that all was done because of her love for her children and her children are hers for an entire lifetime. No mother would want their kids to suffer through life yet no good mothers would want their kids to not learn their lessons after a bad fall, either.

It's never easy being a mother, as I have recently realised after some bouts of crisis, and even harder being a good mother.

A good mother does not need to be afraid to correct the wrong yet admit that she has made a mistake, and lower her ego all in the name of love. A good mother doesn't protect her kids who have done grave mistakes while she reprimands those who truly love her, who does whatever it takes for her and constantly thinks only of her feelings. I mean, what good does it do to mistreat the better children only to protect those bad apples because a good mom would know that that will never solve the problem, and the individual will never learn her lesson.

A good mother doesn't go against her word just for her convenience but demonstrate equal respect to all her kids because she knows that respect is earned and that she would want her kids to respect and love her, not only because it's her rights as a mom.

A good mother is able to tolerate life's challenges because she, of all people, would understand more about life while her kids are still only less than half of her age, who still needs time to learn while they tread the rough pathways of life and that they need all the guidance they can get unconditionally, not being treated second class just because they are willing to put up with everything in order to learn and be a better person.

Yes, it is hard being a mother, and more so, being a good mother.

I am still learning especially in this recent development dealing with a growing boy-turning-into-a- young man who sometimes rebel and unsure of what he needs to do or where he should step. A good mother will not let her child get lost and bring him back with proper guidance.

As much as I had so much resentments with how my mother handled me before - of how overly protective she was of me in my teenage years, so much so that I couldn't even go out with my friends until I've completed my SPM exams... I couldn't understand why I needed to be chauffeured driven everywhere I went and why I was constantly reminded to take good care of myself, as if I didn't already know of that particular fact.

The truth is, as much as it sounded really irritating - of her repeating to me constantly to take good care of myself, I guess I now am so thankful for that constant nagging as I now know that she loves me that much to be so worried of me and afraid that I'd lose myself in the beauty of life as a grown lady.

Mak, is a conservative woman who didn't bother much about being a friend to her daughter because she felt that discipline and doing everything proper, according to her style was the way to raise her children. It was a stressful life being a teenager under her roof and I never understood her style fully.

Now that I am a mother myself, I am exhumed with total relief that she raised me the way she did as all her qualities of a good mom suddenly became so clear to me...

Yes, being a good mom is not very easy but that her ways of raising her children made us who we are today, prevented us from making any irreversible life mistakes that could ruin our future but most of all, ensuring that her kids do not take her for granted. She's firm and she's an even tougher cookie compared to me but after 34 years of my life, I suddenly realised that she had at least tried to be a good mom. No matter how difficult her children once thought life was under her roof, we all could now safely testify that after having kids of our own, and going through life one day at a time, we are truly grateful to be born in that family and to have her as our mother.

She is a remarkable mother and I deem her, a good mother.

It ain't easy being a good mother, but she has been one damn good mother.

There is no need to pretend in our family and there isn't any need to be manipulative to get what we want. Everything is done in a straight-forward manner and honesty becomes a very important factor for the family to remain strong albeit with the many weaknesses.

Now that I have kids of my own, I would like to take all the positive things that she's taught us. I vow to never lose sight of what's important for my kids that whatever I do or the decisions that I make for them (while they are under this same roof or not), will be for their benefit in the long run. I know I would need to be strong to face resistance from my kids if they find it hard to understand why I do the things I do because I know, 10-20 years down the road, they will be in my shoes now, looking back and realising that yes... it is difficult being a mom, but mommy was definitely a good mom.

Happy Mothers' Day.

I was supposed to blog about something else but since I feel so strongly about this subject tonight, I shall blog about this instead.

My dear friend and ex-colleague, Elaine, is back for a short break and since little jj and I were down with chicken pox during her last trip back home, we made sure to make time for each other this time.

The meeting was made even more meaningful when our lovely friend and ex-colleague (too!), Nicole, managed to take off from work and converged at my apartment this afternoon. After I sent the little munchkin off to school, I joined them both for a quick lunch at KFC since Elaine was craving for it due to it not being available in Switzerland... and promised to join them a little later for dinner, to meet another friend whom I had not met and chatted in ages. So, I went back home to let little jj take her beauty nap while the two of them headed to 1Utama where Nicole had to meet someone for a discussion.

In between waiting for little jj to wake up from her afternoon nap and the eagerness for the one to return home quickly, Elaine called me up to tell me that she might have left her camera at one of the shops in Giant while shopping for stuff after I left. Of course, my instant response would be to say that she might not be getting that camera back if she had left it there. I mean, Digital Camera? And in Giant? There are tonnes of patrons going in and out and electronic stuff like that are usually stuff that you may not see again if you misplace them.

Well, as a friend, all I could do was to go back to the store and just ask, out of obligation. I mean, I wouldn't know what the outcome may be even with the assumption of it disappearing permanently. It is after all just nearby my place, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to drop by just before I go off to meet them for dinner.

The first stop was at the RM5 shop... the promoters there gave me a negative answer. So, my next hope would be KFC, where we had our lunch.

I queued up and then asked this one girl at the last counter if anybody had found a digital camera that a friend of mine might have left.

Whaddaya know... honesty, trustworthiness and sincerity still live on in the selected few urban population. She nodded and smiled, pulled out the drawer right next to her, took out all the documents and stuff, and then took out the black pouch with the camera, all still intact. And as if it was my own possession, I was thrilled and let out a few arabic words of gratefulness to Allah, thanked her for the kindness and left the place feeling ecstatic... that I was glad to have dropped by the place and was able to extend whatever kindness back to Elaine by doing this small favour.

So, to all of you, I would like to tell you here that the KFC outlet in Giant Mall, Kelana Jaya, has people who deserve to be given the acknowledgement in here. I shall drop by more often there.

Of course before that, I text her and said, tough luck. Haha. She thought the camera was totally gone. In reality, luck is tough. But I didn't mention that luck was actually on her side ;)

I made my way to 1Utama but the traffic was really really bad and parking was a challenge. But things were good and we all had our usual good time together, joined by Carmen, another ex-colleague turned good friend.

The three of us have come a long way from where we were back then and the amount of things we all went through together while working under a crazy bitch has formed a relatively strong friendship between us. Carmen, was an outsider always looking in on us... she was taking care of bancassurance matters and totally understood what the three of us had endured, being in that 'aquarium' on the 30th floor of Menara HLA.

Seriously, apart from one other friend (and ex-colleague) who's now residing in Sydney, these two are an entirely different story. Up til now, after more than 7 years away from the evil clutches of a devil who wore Nine West, we could all still talk about her non-stop and how much she flows in our bloodstream. Still. Haha. We would imitate her scolding Elaine especially, since Elaine's hands would tremble at every WIP meeting every Monday morning at 9 am sharp. And she would always attack Elaine first since Elaine would exude that vulnerable aura which was magnetic enough to pull a negative energy towards her...

We would always remember how she would bang all the doors to the pantry cupboards just because Elaine (who was in charge of events' catering) didn't understand what she meant by having the meals 'hidang' style haha... I was very new at that time and boy... did my eyes pop out when the entire 30th floor echoed with the loud shutting of cupboards, pulling out cups and saucers ;P

We would always talk about how she'd question Elaine on why her hands were shaking at every WIP meetings and how bad she made Elaine cry...

Tonight, we were even recalling some really awful stuff which may not be that nice to be mentioned here.

Then, there was that fake surprised expression in all of us during every birthday celebration! See, she doesn't have that many friends in life and because of that, she made us contribute RM50 for every staff's birthday (while she, who earned 4x our salary, also contributed the same amount!). What she NEVER knew was, all of us had planned the birthday gifts together, ie. we would buy the gifts together. Therefore, except for her gift, we would all already know what we were getting for our birthdays. And since she's a sucker for surprises, we let her be surprised with her gift, while all of us pretended to be surprised with normal and standard statements like, "Oooh, this is soooo thoughtful of you!" or "Omygawd... how did you know I wanted this??" or "Ohmygawd ohmygawd... I've always wanted to get this for myself"!! Haha... the only thing we didn't know coming would be the type of cakes that we're getting and the modus operandi of the surprise party.

I think that birthday thingy must be the best joke for us as we act surprised in front of her. Oh, and how much they hated that I was her 'pet' because I could anticipate her expectations ;P

Of course, to be fair to her, not everything is bad.

No no... let me rephrase that... in all the devils that you meet, there would be valuable lessons in life that you could extract and apply it to your advantage.

When Nicole and I became heads of department for different organisations after we left Hong Leong, we agreed that one of the best things about Ms Cruella deVille, was her weekly WIP. It was perfect. Everywhere else, people are always so busy... too busy to even discuss WIPs. But with her, it was compulsory. If you have not done it, you're supposed to complete it during weekends or come to the office by 7am on Monday. I tell you, our weekend was always spent worrying in case there are things we have committed to doing the week before and was not accomplished. WIP is a great way to plan your schedules and work is done more efficiently. The best part would be the fact that everyone in the department knows what you're doing and in case an outsider enquires about certain things when you're away, anybody else can answer on your behalf.... at least, no one can say they do not know...

Secondly, when it comes to sending out emails (especially when the whole world was copied), we would reread, go through the entire email hundreds of times and make amendments to specific words used to ensure that people do not misconstrue our true intentions and no one irrelevant would get into trouble. Therefore, one simple email may take 1/2 hour to 1 hour before it is actually sent. These days, people would simply hit the send button and get into trouble... spelling errors, wrong recipients, etc.

Thirdly, everything must be done in black and white. So many people love to screw corporate communications as they either think we are magicians or that we could create miracles. Once a black and white is out with proper confirmation and agreed content, we would ensure that the department is not taken for a ride and definitely not used as taichi. We found that all other organisations we worked in, are not friendly with this black and white concept so we concluded that it is all up to the leadership.

We also learnt from her how to multi-task, remember things at the tip of our fingers, negotiate for good rates more effectively and work efficiently even in a lean team. There were only 3 of us handling the group yet we all managed to pull through it all, sweat, tears and all. And the priceless part was learning the fact that everything has a hundred ways of getting done. There is no such thing as 'No'... everything is a 'Can' and you are required to think of ways to get it done... of course, within limits. I guess that must be the most valuable skill that I could even apply in my daily tasks.

Last but not least, no matter how bad she was, she was extremely fair when it comes to remuneration and evaluations. She would always always rate us all very high and openly refutes HR's concept of having quotas for over-achievers. To her, if everyone did a good job, then everyone should be evaluated professionally and given the necessary rewards. No one should be left behind to make way for an over-achiever. And no matter how much she liked to make Elaine fearful of her, she actually fought for Elaine's upgrade and pay rise as soon as I joined the department, since I had similar years of experience to her but I was getting a higher pay as I joined from another organisation. In this sense, she showed me clearly that no matter what HR says, the boss has the rights to change anything, when it deems fit. Hence, this was what we did too when we became bosses - to fight for what's right for the staff even if HR's policy and guidelines say otherwise... I mean, rules are just basic guidelines... a boss has a powerful voice since they would know best of how valuable the staff is to a company. Furthermore, I believe that the efficiency of the staff reflects heavily on the leadership... if a staff excels, surely the boss has given so much motivation. If one fails to perform, there must be something wrong with the leadership...

There are a lot more skills that we developed from working under her but those aren't really skills we learnt from her... more of skills we learnt to survive under her... which was pretty good, actually.

So, while I was browsing through my old files, I found several very memorable photos I have of all of us... something that I shall never ever forget for the rest of my life because these are really wonderful women who've kinda grown with me, accept each other as is, support each other through whatever decisions we make in life and remain friends through it all.

Love you guys!!

So... I was at Starbucks 11th Anniversary bash at Tropicana City Mall tonight with my SIL, Jannah. Their dresscode in the invitation was stated as Masquerade but I think most of them who went weren't really dressed to the theme. Lucky thing as I didn't have anything glamourous and I easily chose whatever I have that I could fit into... and that wasn't very difficult since though I am getting back into my pre-pregnancy figure, there are still many of my nicer clothes which I can't fit ;)

Anyways, when we arrived at the venue, registration just took place as many have only arrived due to the heavy rain and bad bad traffic. Salleh, the Marketing Manager gave us a warm welcome, asked us to register and checked if we wanted to take pictures with some really gorgeous models, dressed to the theme.

We did all that and even wrote our wish on a card. Apparently, someone was going to get lucky and his wish will be granted. Though Jannah asked for a new lens for her Sony Alpha A700 which just checked-in at the service centre earlier during the day, I on the other hand, asked for something more reasonable - to have unlimited cappuccino FOC from Starbucks for the next 365 days. Well, though I had a good vibe that my card was going to get picked tonight, I didn't manage to stay on til the end since it was getting late. So, there went my chance on coffee overdose ;P

We were greeted with two large screens where they displayed their facebook page that was going to be launched later during the event and their twitter page, which got many of us twittering away, all excited to see our tweet appearing with photos and all. Hmmm... technology... at an event where you're supposed to network and mingle, many were all at their mobile haha... but it was good since we got to see those celebrity bloggers there at the partay. Ohkay...

The big boss came up with a welcome speech, informing us that they had just launched a drive-thru Starbucks in JB and whatnot, which they plan to also have it in KL. He also thanked all of us for the support.

Plenty of other programmes were in store for us who were present at the event and I thought they have made it really lively, fun and happening. There were dances by some show'girls', team activity (which was truly fun and we almost won, if not for the bangle that we didn't manage to find), and my friend, Nazrul, got me up on stage for one activity which truly caught us by surprise... we didn't know that they wanted us to dance a difficult routine and almost ran off from the stage before it was over. Oh, and I must mention about David the Mentalist - a cute and witty guy, who was at the event as an illusionist... he did a card trick on Jannah and I, and we were awed at the neat trick....

So, Starbucks is already 11 years old in Malaysia... which means that I am one of their first few customers, then. Please, do not calculate my age. Oh wait... you know how old I am since I just declared that some time last week ;)

I remembered after graduating from uni and hanging out with friends who love to hang out at places like Starbucks. I think at one point, we were at Starbucks @Telawi Bangsar almost every evening after work before heading out to mamak for dinner. During the weekends, we would either head there after a good time clubbing or just simply to chill and relax for a 'quieter' evening. It was great, those days when I was younger, without much worry especially since I was still staying with my parents... it felt so good to have good friends around and we always have so many things to do together... now when I think of it, I never really realised that Starbucks was quite a big influence in my social life then.

It was a good experience learning how to order their coffee... and I started out with their frappuccinos which I found a tad too mild for a coffee lover. I had always asked for an extra shot of espresso in all the fraps that I ordered. After some time, I guess I managed to try out many of their other drinks. My favourite would be their Cappuccino and Raspberry Tea.

Ahhh... such a nice feeling reminiscing the past. Wait, come to think of it, my first date with the one was at KLCC's Starbucks in 2005. Hmmm... there was magic there, definitely... with us drinking that one big mug of coffee, chatting away for three hours without even realising the time. And the day before, I was also at KLCC's Starbucks when I finally caught a glimpse of him, my 'favourite' blogger, having a discussion with his colleagues after office hours without him even realising that I was to be his favourite 'stalker' ;P

*warm feeling all over*

So, thank you, Starbucks... and congratulations on the achievements.

Ok... now back to work. I have tonnes of stuff waiting for me on my desk and it was a lovely outing. I would so like to thank my supportive other half for allowing me to party while he stays home to take care of the potty. Haha.

went home with these goodies... oh, i absolutely love the espresso shot glass.