Don’t you dare!

Disini suka juga Beta mengingatkan, supaya semua pihak mempunyai rasa tanggungjawab untuk memelihara alam sekitar, menjadikannya menarik dan bersih, tidak terdapat sampah sarap yang berselerak, terutama di tempat-tempat membeli-belah, pasar-pasar, termasuk juga pasar tamu dan pasar tani.

- 2007’s National Day Titah by HM Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah MW.

I was reading through the Sultan’s National Day Titahs (RANDOM) right here on the extremely fast loading Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports website.

I would just like to add a piece of my mind on the issue. There is absolutely NOTHING, NOTHING that can justify the despicable action of public or non-public littering. Bearing in mind, especially in this day and age where everyone KNOWS of the disgusting effects of littering, how bad it is for the environment, how disgusting it makes our lives, and in this day and age where we are supposedly the most MODERN of all human races, possessing all the various technologies of rubbish bins!

Littering is a moronic and imbecilic act of defacing the Earth! And since the Earth is God’s, whenever you litter, you are defacing His creation! So don’t you dare!

DON’T YOU DARE!

Toasts!

Great weather outside!

Here today to post some random pictures from a few years back. Was just browsing through my Photo CDs and
found these great gems. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Bombe Alaska! I forgot I made this once. Spiky, crunchy meringue on the outside, covering a layer of sponge cake, and a ball of frozen ice-cream. Great treat to be consumed immediately after baking!

Hot stone reflexology at Tasek Lama. Caution to newbies: WALK SLOWLY.

Seafood pasta in savory tomato sauce from Manjaro. Delicious! One of my favorite dishes ever.

A little zen garden in the middle of the capital.

A comforting dish of ginger beef with spring onions from Traders Inn Cafe in Beribi.

Droooooool.

Brunei’s Blog of the Year

I’m sure everyone has probably heard! Big congratulations to Kurapak & Crew for winning the title of Brunei’s Blog of the Year.

Second place goes to the ever ubiquitous Rano!

Third goes out to Miss Nonnie King of Spiritual Garden!

They are all blogs I love and I really couldn’t have cared less who won. I didn’t vote also because I COULDN’T MAKE UP MY MIND!

Of course just because AnakBrunei didn’t win, doesn’t mean he’s not cooooooooooool to the MAXIMUM. Charity work will be rewarded in many many many ways, insya Allah.

And Arab-Families will always stay close to my heart (you know, with them feeding me yummy and healthy buffet spreads in UBD all these years), and also because I’ve never met a great family so warm and welcoming, eventhough I’m merely a stranger.

As for Brunei Fishing, well, it’s got a lot of fishes (sama bunyi laut). Yeap. Unfortunately uncooked. You guys should include recommended recipes to entice gluttons like me. Hehe. Guaranteed 50% more hits. Great to finally meet the brains behind those fishy posts (Ha Ha Ha I’m so witty). First ever public appearance I believe?

GREAT JOB BOYS AND GIRLS!

*******

Now on to more serious matters. (As if the Bloggies aren’t!)

Do you know what this is?

Well it’s been creating a major buzz in the country over the last few days, and it’s a portable broadband modem, operating on the new 3.5G technology launched by DST Telecommunications, affectionately tagged Go! Broadband. Now you really can surf with high speeds, pretty much everywhere! Impressive, especially considering the kind of deals DST is offering (as low as BND$38 per month?).

You just wait when the catchy ads start rolling in. GO BROADBAND GO BROADBAND GO FOR IT!!!!!!! It’ll be the next annoying jingle next to the “CHEESY CHEESY CHESY BITES!!!!!!!!!” song because they get STUCK in your head forever.

Anyway, I do welcome these wonderful upgrades to enrich my internet experience, very very much. However, I was just thinking of these new technologies. First of all, there are only about (barely) half a million of us, including the senior citizens and infants who barely use the internet, let alone HIGH SPEED ones. Second of all, there are now officially THREE internet service providers in the country. B-Mobile (Zoom), TelBru (E-Speed) and now DST (Go!).

Is it just me or can everyone feel some steep competition between the three? Not complaining of course. The consumer I guess will benefit from this competition. But as we all know, there is more to things than just low prices. As the saying goes, Nasi Katok is not a balanced meal.

Seeing broadband is a new phenomenon is Brunei, as a consumer, how does one decide which is the best package, which is the best deal?

Far from just “ordinary”

Will surely miss it now that it’s over.

View from backstage: Would you be able to perform with this many people in the audience?

So unbelievably proud of my Bintangs. All that sweat, tears, and hours of practice finally paid off. Everyone looked amazing and I am still astonished with their level of confidence, talent, courage and creativity. CONGRATULATIONS TO EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU! I hope with this, they would maybe look back one day and say, “damn, I had immense fun back then, I love school”.

NB: So hard to find kids who enjoy school nowadays.

Do read up on posts on the school’s blog (!) and also the certain DJ’s blog (thanks again for coming, love).

Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times over to Jollibee Brunei, Syarikat Eirdhaniee, Blue Eden Restaurant, Sehat Water (especially Mr Anton), and Pelangi FM for supporting the event in tremendous ways!

I would also like to express extreme gratitude to the teachers that had volunteered a helping hand, no matter how small, even though we know you are busy and overworked, and everybody knows that teachers hate staying back in school during the afternoons. It showed how beautiful your hearts are, and despite popular belief, voluntarism is not dead in the teaching industry, and I hope it never will.

But I am most grateful to my partner in crime, Cikgu (always and forever, no matter what your future career choice would be) HA, for always pushing me to be better. I hope you would include me in more projects up your sleeves.

Now it’s time to go back to real life.

Lucky stars

BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY!

Concert at school is tomorrow!!! I’ll leave you with a video of one of our semi-finalists (he didn’t get in!). Oh by the way, if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, head HERE.

Tatarouille

Trapped! (The rat was screaming cheep cheep next to my table. I don’t speak Rat, but I think it was saying something along the lines of “LET ME GOOOOOOOOO HAVE MERCY!!!!!!!”)

I am now convinced that Unit Kawalan Vektor, Kementerian Kesihatan is reading Turquoise and Roses. Apparently a lot of places called those people up but they never turn up, but we’ve only called them a few days ago and now here they are setting up some mighty strong rat traps in strategic places around the school! Great job they’ve been doing so far!

I don’t particularly care what they do to the rats. DIsgusting disease carriers! I’ve resorted to stuffing my desk with floral-scented carcinogenic mothballs to prevent the rats from PEEING in my desk. I hate them so much that I am actually resorting to possible cancer. YUCKKKKKK!

Anyway, thank you Vector Control Unit, Ministry of Health! Great job!

Twentieth April, Year of the Elephant

 

Elephant photo taken from BBC News In Pictures.

I was just singing to myself that old nasyid (song) about Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) birthday yesterday, and it suddenly dawned on me that the Prophet’s a Taurus. Did anyone remember that according to the Gregorian calendar, it was his birthday 2 days ago? 

Allahumasalialasayyidinamuhammad.

Anyway, his zodiac is irrelevant, just as ours are. But let us all recite Surah Al Fil (fil meaning “elephant”), in order to commemorate the year he was born. A year where Abrahah Military Troops attacked Mecca with the intention of destroying the Kaabah with help from their war elephants.

Abrahah, reportedly built a great massive cathedral (or something) in Sanaa, Yemen, hoping to thwart the worshippers near Kaabah to worship there instead. Maybe it was VISIT YEMEN YEAR and he wanted to have revenues from tourism, I don’t know, but the result was, the cathedral (or something) remained empty and unoccupied, to the extent that he had to order his army of elephant riders attack Mecca to destroy the Holy Kaabah.

When they arrived in Mecca, the cute ephalants absolutely refused to do anything to the Kaabah. Everytime they are commanded to do something, they sat down instead. They held steadfast, and forced the elephants, over and over until Allah SWT sent down some mighty birds from heaven called the Ababil, bringing stones from Hell, that scorched and burnt Abrahah’s army, while keeping those in Mecca safe and sound.

That was what my Ugama teacher used to tell us. Wallahualam. Moral of the story? Stay away from jealousy and greed, as they are rather destructive qualities to possess. (Oh and also, good always will prevail over evilllllll!!! Remember that always!)

Have a read. Bismillahirahmanirahim.

Loss

A loss is always sad
It seems.
Tears need not flow
It seems.

That’s all I have to say about it.

Al Fatihah to my uncle who just passed away this afternoon, a very patient and soft-spoken man, I can only dream to have that kind of strength and dedication he showed towards his wife, his sons and his daughters.

Do men like him still exist, I wonder? Wallahualam.

An Escape from Marking

Hello everyone! Hehe, I am now blogging next to her, who looks.. busy. What you think teachers are not busy people? They work 24 hours a day ok. They teach your sons and daughters, and when they’re not teaching, they’re marking, and when they’re not doing that, they’re planning what and how to teach, and creating materials for teaching, and when they’re not doing that, they’re worrying about whatever they’re teaching. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the tons of administrative work that they’ve been hurled with. The teaching job does not stop at 12.30pm! You think it’s a handful taking care of ONE child, try taking care of 34 of them, in one class! But that is not the silliest part. The silliest thing of all in this ridiculous profession is that, when just one student actually does his/her work, it makes the whole planning, yelling, negotiating and worrying seem worthwhile a thousand times over! They’re too easy to please, it’s just ridiculous.

Anyway, I shall now abruptly change the topic to something frivolous. Why? Because in life, we need frivolity to keep up sane, young, sexy and alive. Some fine dining, a little shopping spree now and then, beautiful jewellery, relaxing massage every full moon, great friends, great laughs. Enjoy them! They’re like little trinkets of joy. Just remember to always be thankful to God, for every minute, every second, every day.

I’m going way off tangent again. Oh I had a near-death experience today. Though that’s probably rather dramatic of me. It is “near death” but its not necessarilly mine. It was raining cats and dogs on the highway around lunch time, and I was rushing because I had to meet Boipren. Then I saw an ambulance flashing its lights on my rearview mirror and promptly went to the left side. Suddenly to my horror, the ambulance went on a puddle and swerved violently to the highway railings and slipped to MY side of the road! I had to practically slam on my brakes and stop in the middle of the road! If I hadn’t I surely would have hit the spinning ambulance. Crazy! The ambulance’s tyres probably had no tread left on it, which is rather scary since there’s a patient riding at the back! Anyway, it looks fine though, just superficial smashes on the side caused by contact with the highway railings. But someone has got to do something about the tyres. Scary.

Lets take a moment to reflect. *Al Fatihah*

A big shout out to the extremely thoughtful Senor Pablo Fernandez who sent me a little birthday gift all the way from Kangarooland! I’m extremely touched and suddenly have the strongest urge to say “Friends Forever” but I will not, because I’m cool. Hoho.

I WAS SO EXCITED on the way to the Mail Processing Centre. The last time I went there was for this. I think it reminds me of times when my dad used to be away a lot overseas and he’d send nice stuff, and we’d go and pick it up at the MPC and everyone would get a gift! It’s such a nice feeling!

At first I thought it was a CD, because it’s in a thin square packaging, then, when I got to the “censorship board” and had to open it right then and there, I was pleasantly surprised to find this chic pink card, and a little gift inside!

Isn’t it lovely? Hehe. I hooked it on my car keys right there and then! :D:D Thanks again Pabs!

Wow super long post. I should blog from school more often. Anyway, it’s extremely nice getting things from snail mail.

Here’s something fun, if you are a reader from anywhere outside of Brunei, do send me a postcard! E-mail or drop me a message on the Contact page so I can give you my proper address. My address is also available on my Facebook page. I’ll gladly return the favor, and it would surely make my day! Send from anywhere in the world!

Pajama Movie Night

First and foremost, P.S. I Love You contains a very cute Irish man that you want to eat and marry. So don’t watch it if you have high blood pressure and a weak heart. May also induce and stimulate some tear glands and uncontrollable sobbing. I’m not mentioning any names.

MUAHAHA.

Anyway, so I had immense fun on the night. I wore a soft green nightie with my pink wedges. My girlies, Tina and Atul were both there and apparently we talk a lot. It’s true!

Here we are while talking non stop. These people are great company.

We talked about voluntarism, which was very appropriate as the whole Pajama Movie Night, was after all, held for charity. It is not very common to see young Malay boys and girls volunteering for whatever charity groups. While we came up with many reasons to explain, we summed up, one major factor is how it is not ingrained into our society. There is a common understanding or ‘norm’ that when a member of our society is in trouble, for example,  we usually leave everything to the “authorities” whoever that might be.

Another reason is that the ‘authorities’ view volunteer work as more interfering rather than helping. They are reluctant to deploy these young minds bursting with energy and health, which I just find rather sad. So in the end we all just assume that these organizations don’t need help, because they already have help, and though we like to help, we don’t want to interfere.

Also, even if we want to volunteer, it’s quite tedious, almost like applying for a job, except that you don’t know where to send letters/make calls to. Let say, on charity websites, there are no, “volunteer here” page of some sort, or something like that. Maybe there are people out there who wants to volunteer, yet… don’t know how to go about doing it.

Of course, that didn’t stop these people right here. Good job! Next stop is my room!

Anyway, not to steer the attention away from our phenomenal AnakBrunei, congratulations again for such great response! Looking forward to more charity-disguised-as-frivolity from you! To the girlies, and lurkers, for more pictures of the PJ Movie Night, I’ve uploaded to my Facebook. HEAD HERE.

Next post: Something fun I received via airmail! Stay tuned!

Online and Happy

The internet’s back!

During the lonely and depressingly e-speedless night, over a mug of warm milk and ginger snaps, I’ve come to the realisation how utterly sad and Internet-dependent my life has become.

Ok, reflection over. Time to blog hop.

Edit// Ugh, the internet may be back but it’s moving at a most remarkably glacial pace! That thrills me to no end!

Boys nowadays

Another day, another plug for a band from school. This time it’s sung by the so called “not so smart” PMV students. Playing the guitar by ear, with his own song even.

Something mellow to calm our hectic lives on Wednesday. Here’s “Yang Pertama” from Radio Band. Enjoy folks!

Sleep with me

Now… what should I wear.

WordPress ROCKS!

Omigod I am so in love with the new WordPress dashboard!

And I love this new “Write Post” page!

I love it, I love it, I love it!

THIS IS WHY I’M ON WORDPRESS!

Thanks guys!