I like stories. Don’t you? During my childhood, I was brought up with a lot of stories. All of them never fail to amaze me. Typical examples of the stories are like “Sang Kancil Dengan Buaya” (mousedeer with the crocodile), “Anjing dengan bayang-bayang” (Dog with the shadow).

I don’t know about you but I think these amazing stories are slowly becoming extinct. Nobody tells them anymore. Which is such a loss to us because they are all amazing stories where the children (I am the living proof) learn a lot of things about life.

So I am going to dedicate today’s entry to the preservation of the stories. But the fact is… story is only an essay if not read out loud. So I sincerely hope those who read today’s entry to keep telling our children our childhood stories and hopefully they will enjoy and more importantly learn from them.

Once upon a time, there was a dog. This dog was very greedy and was the bully of the village. All other dogs were afraid of it.

One day, to the dog surprise, it found a very big bone. It was very happy and picked up the bone to be brought home. Along the way, the dog will have to cross a river. There’s a bridge across the river. So the dog, still enjoying its lunch, walked across the bridge.

In the middle of the bridge, it looked down and saw another dog inside the river carrying another big bone. (We all know it is just the reflection of the dog, but of course this dog is so greedy it fail to access that part of its brain.) The dog was very greedy and want to have that other bone, it tried to scare its own reflection away. Once it opened its mouth to bark, the bone in its mouth dropped into the river. And now it had none.

Moral of the story – Greedy people always loses in the end. (Orang kedekut selalu rugi)

What’s your favorite childhood stories? List them here please.. 🙂

———- Personal Note ————-
I love telling stories to children especially my youngest sister, Mira. She is now in standard 2. (She’s not my actual sister but she is a sister to me) Anyway… when I told her the stories, I will usually exaggerate with all the voices and even some pictures, Of course, it is more like sketches on how the story goes. :)So one time, I actually found her sitting and she was telling the same story to herself by sketching them in her book (I don’t know.. maybe trying to remember the story), with all the exaggeration etc. heheh PRICELESS

This is a continuation of the previous post on Redefining Priority

I heard this from a forwarded email and rewrite it for better understanding. Imagine you have a box for your computer. This is what you are supposed to pack, a set of computer, some CDs and unlimited amout of blank diskette. How do you pack?

1) Blank diskette first, CDs and then computer?
2) CDs first, computer and then blank diskete?
3) Computer first, CDs and then blank diskette?

If you start packing your blank diskettes first, the box will be filled with diskettes. How do you want to pack the computer or the CDs then?

To properly pack, we must pack the important ones first – the computer. Then if there is still some space left, pack the CDs. Blank diskettes is the least important because there are a lot of them and they are all blank.

Life is like that, we must first entertain the most important things in life, which are family, spouse, children etc. Then only we check on our career, friends, blogs, etc. The least important thing in life is like popularity, ego etc

———— personal note ————-
I have to admit, that when I started this blog.. sometime I spend more time with the blog than with my family. (At the moment there’s only the mrs, later only there’ll be family 🙂 ), So I sincerely apologize to the mrs that if there is at anytime she feels neglected. There’s no way I am like that. She is the most important person in my life.. Period. Even so, it is she who is the most supportive of me throughout my journey to blog. I really appreciate this..p.s. The original story actually involves a jar, stone and sand.

Summary – Lesson learnt from washing dishes

It has always been established between me and the mrs that cooking will be her duty and washing dishes is mine. Obviously we will help each other out but the responsibility is clearly as such.

So here I was doing my dishes when I suddenly noticed something about the way I wash the dishes. 🙂 Apparently there is a pattern and I just realized it. Instead of washing what ever come first, I always choose the biggest items in the sink (like plates etc) first before the smaller one. Yes, even if that piece is located deep down the mountain of dishes.

I know what you’re thinking, banji.. you have way much time eheh bear with me for a while. I then try to figure out why do I wash dishes in such a way, bigger plate first and then the smaller plate. Here’s why…

The reason for my methods is because I want to have an immediate visual satisfaction. When I see the big plate washed, (meaning no longer in the sink) I feel like this work I’m doing is actually making progress and I can see it clearly. Imagine if I washed all those spoon and fork first, the mountain of plate will still be there and it is quite demotivating.

Heheh when you wash dishes, your mind tends to wander, and this is when ideas will come in pouring. So what is it I am trying to highlight here?

That maybe in everything we do, we can start with the most important things first (or big things). This way when we finish that one, we will be more motivated to finish off those smaller ones, because from visual point of view, we had already finished half of the pile of work with one completed job.

Classic example is like when you clean your room. All the garbage is still left on the floor, but you spend your time cleaning all the dust at the window (which by the way, nobody will notice). This will be very demotivating because after you had finished with the dust, you will see those garbage and it seems that all your work is for nothing.

Obviously this “Finish the bigger task first” rule has better application for other things in life, right? 🙂

Where else we can apply this rule? Or do you even agree with it? If not, care to share any other suggestion?

————–Personal Note————-
Now that the mrs is pregnant, I will have to help more with the housework. I truly respect those working wives. You work just as tough and when you get back from work, you cook, clean and entertain your family with so much energy. I salute you….One of the biggest mystery of life… Working wives 🙂 (Note: By wives, I meant the whole group of wives in general, not one husband 4 wives 🙂 )

Summary – Two things noticed..

First of all… let’s take a moment and recite the surah AlFatihah to Adik Nurin Jazlin.

Thousands of blog around Malaysia are writing on this unfortunate event. Cursing the psychopath and praying that the family will be strong and patient. This blog will join in cursing that psychopath and pray he will be caught and punished. It would be better if he can be chained at Dataran Merdeka.. and let us all “rejam batu” at him. I personally will take a day off and go there.

Two things I noticed from this unfortunate event

1) Be careful, there’s a psycho around us

Malaysia is a very beautiful country. We are admired by most nation as a nation of peace. I totally agree. We can actually walk anywhere in Malaysia without any fear.

Until now.. one person has changed the whole Malaysia. This one person has proved that despite our best quality, there’s a monster living among us. That monster is only one person, but it totally affect all Malaysian. We all mourn for our Kak Ngah.

The point is please increase our awareness on the matter

• Know your neighbour, make friends with them
• Know your children, their friends, and keep track of their activity
• Educate them as early as possible on humanity to prevent them from being that one monster.
• Please be cautious, again… there’s a monster among us

Malaysia is still peaceful, Malaysian can still be proud of our beloved Malaysia for its courtesy etc. But we have to admit and aware of this monster, and take every precaution we could think of to protect ourselves and family

2) There maybe some hope in the unity in Malaysia

I’m touched by the thousands of people mourning over our Kak Ngah. Chinese, Indian, Malays etc all joined together.

I guess, in time like this.. We are all reduced to simpler being. We are no longer Malays, Chinese or Indian. We are just fathers, mothers, brothers. We are all family.

So let’s… Let us all be brothers and sisters. Start small.. start from your neighbour. Then maybe your colleague and go on. Let them know our intention is to create that bond with them. It’s no easy task.. We are so used to the idea, our house.. our house, theirs theirs.

I really wish all this cruelty happening to our children stop. These are our children.. an “Amanah” from Allah Himself. How can people even look at children that way. Seriously, I hope my “Dataran Merdeka” idea is taken into consideration.

————–Personal Note————-
Personally, I think they are many sexual predator now because of the porn in the internet. How else such a culture can be within us? We can’t stop the internet. But we can break certain culture of ours and start openly teach our children on sex education etc. Hopefully they will know the bad effect of porn before it even corrupt them.Look at it this way, the children will sooner or later learn about it, why not we show them the right way to learn it.