123Passportphoto.com - the perfect passport photo composer!

Once upon a time, it was so expensive to get passport photos done in Switzerland. If I remember it correctly, I used to pay something like CHF80 for 4 photos. Absolutely unbelievable. I then stumbled across 123passportphoto.com ... since then I never looked back. It's the perfect online passport photo composer, and the best for value for money - No Doubt!

Regret and happiness

This my first post after many months if not a few years. Certain things in life have taken some major turns in the recent time - we purchased a small house, our youngest is now 9 year old, the eldest is 14 and the middle one 11, we adopted a tabby kitten and he's 3.5 year old (that's likes 20 in human term if I'm not mistaken), we sold our Toyota Verso having got the gearbox repaired and got ourselves a 4 year old VW Touran and wife got her license! We now live in a small "row house" or "terrace house", with two small sized adults, one petit teenager, and two pre-teen kids and a big tabby cat. It's pretty crowded which makes me regret ... why the hell did I pay so much for such a small place. There isn't even enough room for everyone - the girls have to share a room that bothers me so much ... :( sigh. I tend to either make no decision or stupid decisions in life. Looking back I wish I could have given more thoughts and not rush into making decisions on certain things. We now have an overpriced small house with appalling built quality and no saving.

On the positive note, the kids have been doing very well in their less complicated life.

My eldest girl is still very active in her sport - artistic gymnastic (no guys, it's the not the one with balls and ribbons, that's Rhythmic gymnastic!). Though she once trained to break into the "Kanton" junior team (equivalent to state team), she didn't make it, which we as parents were probably partially at fault depending on how one looks at it. She now trains at and representing her Club and in this context she's done very well. She was a few times times on the podium which includes once as the Kanton (Aargau) champion and most recently third place in team event at the Swiss National Championship (despite being sick during the tournament). On the academic side, she's on track to go to the "Kantonschule" (Translated Kanton School), which is like a college that would prepare her for university.

My youngest followed her big sister's footstep and is also in artistic gymnast. I must say she's done beyond our expectation, given the fact that she's for the past two years in the Swiss national junior group. At 9, it'd probably take another 7 years or so if she's ever to make it (by this I mean competing at the highest level internationally and finger cross at the Olympics - it costs nothing to dream). She trains 6 times a week Monday to Saturday, each day for about 4 hours. It's a tough, long journey which makes me wonder sometimes whether her study will eventually have to take a back seat (though she's up to this point does well in school).

The middle one is the one that surprised us the most, which makes me sometimes think, buying that small overpriced house had probably a silver lining to it. Since our place is close to a badminton club (the Badminton Club Gebenstorf), he rejoined it (he had tried it once earlier but had stopped due to distance from home). Since the first day of rejoining, he has not stopped improving and as off Jan 2020 he's joined his small sister in the Swiss national junior group. Somehow he has a very natural movement, handling of racquet and footwork on the court. In his first Swiss national championship, at 9 year old he got a bronze medal in Under 10 category, and in 2020 got another bronze in under 11. In 2019 he almost became the Kanton (Aargauer) Champion for Under 13 (when he was just 10!) ... Olympic (tough, but free to dream). In school he's so brilliant with Mathematics, picking the top score in almost every test as though his brain is gifted for anything mathematical and logic.

Finally, the letter

Where I work situation has not been great. The first and second retrenchments came and went, and the third one is now hitting me. Today 11 Nov 2019 I got the letter (the "blue" letter as they used to call it here). My position is no longer needed, I have to go. 

I joined the company after Chinese new year on 18 Feb 2002. I am told to look for a new job on 18 Nov 2019. You can do the math yourself, it's a long time. Not a surprise, yet a wee bit of sadness. 

I do not plan to share the news with family, at least not yet. 

I will need to digest the news. 

I'll make us famous

A friend has been trying to get me to learn a bit of Arabic from him and we started off with an over18 jokes from Whatsapp ... it turned out I sounded wasn't that bad with my pronunciation. I then thought we could potentially become famous YouTubers if we could put together something revolving around me learning Arabic and him teaching. It could be a project that will help me with my Arabic at the same time help others, and at some point we could even be making a bit of money (not sure how though .. but that's the next chapter ... my head already begins to brainstorm some ideas).

I haven't shared the whole idea with him although I did text him to say I had an idea to make us two famous :). 

I've had many such ideas on other topics but have never made any move with any. I think this is most viable and one that has a great potential for success. I feel that there are lot of people out there who have interest in the language and lately I am surprise to learn many Europeans have been learning it. As a matter of fact I met an Italian recently who'd self thought himself the language online, though at times he did get some tips and bits and pieces from a friend. Listening to him I was very impressed especially when he started to share with me his understanding of the language grammatical rules which I must say aren't that straightforward at all. 

To the Arabs they seem impressed that I can read Arabic but don't understand it, though on the contrary I've got to say I'm not impressed of myself at all. Partly is a result of a meaningless eagerness of the Malaysian Muslims to memorise the Book without learning the language. Having said that I had a great opportunity to learn the language during my secondary school, but I purposely took it for granted and consequently I failed the test and in short learned nothing. 

It's probably the right time now for me to revisit the language and get myself into the right mode and attitude towards re-learning it. We'll see ... Insyaallah

Let's clean them up for the future generation

The MACC, Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission has confiscated millions in cash!

Man, you've got to be so evil to be stealing this much and blimey keep the stash of cash at home ... well, i guess there's no other way to keep it below the radar. 52M Ringgit of cash! It's unbelievable, never in the history of the country or even the world probably. 

From the Star: 

Two senior officials from the Sabah Water Department have been arrested following discovery of over 52M Ringgit of cash kept hidden in their homes and offices among others. On top of that the MACC has also confirmed the two's accounts with over 60M Ringgit have been frozen as part of the operation (this does not include cash overseas). A number of luxury vehicle and numerous designer handbags, jewelleries and luxury watches were also confiscated.

Goodness me. If such officers have managed to amass such a ridiculous amount of money, just imagine what could be the case should such evil act is also happening at much higher levels (i'm very sure it is). In the ranks below, there's no question it's happening in all corners ... sadly to say, it's rooting so deep down that the whole society is rotting to say the least. A friend who used to work in a Bank once told me about a colleague who picked up a phone and called someone to get him pay for his new car tyres. Clearly that someone had probably received help from this colleague of his on some bank facilities. It's crazy! Another businessman friend recently shared with me how such act is pretty much a deep-rooted culture in the government agencies that he'd always receive direct(!!) asks for kick-backs or signals prior to his projects getting approved or payments released. 

Let's hope for the best for Malaysia. It's simply saddening that the country is turning more and more into a corrupt nation and society. 

...

I'm on a mission

There have been many times when I started this but it never gained momentum and after a while the whole thing king of died off. I'm gonna try again. 

My mission is to earn through my photos .. through online stock agencies and also Fine Art America. How does that sound? Tough ..

I submitted my first set of photos on Fotolia some years ago, probably five years at least. How much have I earned? Well, I've yet to really check, but I think something around 20 pounds. That's crap, I've got to say. But I've also got to say that had I continued to upload consistently, I would have been able to make a bit more than that. And clearly if I was very selective and paid close attention to what I uploaded, I would make quite a lot. But, it's bloody time consuming and every lot you uploaded dozens will get rejected, now that's depressing. I'm gonna make a return. This time around, I'd like to also put a bit more focus on Fine Art America. 

PAMS get together is coming up again!

It's the last minute again for me to get all the stuff ready for the upcoming PAMS event next week Saturday. With a couple of comm members falling sick, it's a "limited arms and legs and limitless tasks to accomplished" situation between the remaining three. The event which is usually organised early in conjunction with Eids has been postponed till now due to the summer holiday and unavailability of a comm member. So far there are ca 100 people + 20 or so kids which we expect to see joining. Many have ordered the takeaway rendang which is offered for the first time ever and ... the responses have been fantastic.

PAMS that stands for Persatuan Anak-anak Melayu Switzerland (Society of Malay Descendants Switzerland) was founded in the 80s by a Malay group from Malaysia. Later in the 90s fellow Malays from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and even Sri Lanka (I never knew there were Malays there) started to also join. Each get together at the time brought some 40 or 50 guests. These days we sometimes reach up to 150/180 people coming from all background Malay and not. 

For those joining us this Saturday, I look forward to seeing you there. Let's hope for a great weather ... so far it looks promising.