Lost and Found

I've lost home keys but not car keys. Until yesterday. It happened on the way into the office. A Monday with a 9 am meeting, I rushed in, grabbing three heavy bags.

In a bit of a daze, I remember trying to get the key into my bag just as the bag was moving on the scanner's conveyor belt.

When it was time to leave the office 10 hours later, I could no longer find the key.

Therein started the frantic search in my office and building security's various offices. After numerous trips into the nearest office asking if they'd seen my "kunci kereta" and was told no, I was resigned to the fact that I'll be toting up quite a few hundred ringgit for a new key.

This morning, having parked in the exact spot that I did a day earlier, I retraced my steps and walked straight to the security room nearest to my regular office entrance.

Asking for a car key, I was told none was found.

I persisted. Perhaps there was a black leather holder this small, I gestured.

And there it was! Aish. They knew not this is a car key? Not an inkling yesterday and even today?

Just Golfing Around

Almost two months of driving the Polo Sedan and I'm thankful for the Golf TSI coming home to me. 

I now gush that the TSI has

1) such soft seats

2) speakers that produce very clear sound

3) a body that keeps the noise out

and best of all,

4) doesn't shift down to fourth gear because it's under-powered

Good to have perspective. In cars and in life. 

Kayrin Goes to Shanghai

There's been hardly time to blog lately. The first five months of the year has zoomed past in a jiffy. School started, exams came in March and Kayrin fell ill the day after exams ended. Five whole days of fever that started with a lot of throwing up. By the time she recovered, after Dr. Wong's administration, she was a skeleton of herself. Then I came down with flu and cough at the end of April and took more than a week to recover. By May, it was SF's turn. Baby Karen got her first viral bout after that. Fever and chesty cough that refused to go away until Dr. Wong returned from her trip and prescribed Binozyt the antibiotic. By then, it was Kayrin's exams again -- a period fraught with tantrums, resistance and smackings. Not fun at all. Oh, there was GE13 to keep everyone geared to the Internet in the month of May.

Now that May is coming to an end, I'm here on a Sunday morning, having dropped Kayrin and her grandma off at the airport near midnight for their first trip together. Shanghai beckons for grandma and Kayrin's the first among SF, Karen and I to step foot there. Enjoy your break, Kayrin, and may you learn to appreciate home better being away from mommy, daddy, 妹妹 and kakak for 12 days.

Five and Almost 10

Little Karen is five months and two weeks old today while Kayrin is 11 days away from having a two-digit age, so Kayrin tells me.
At 5 and a bit months, little Karen has just learned how to flip onto her tummy from her back. She's turning only on her left side so far. No more leaving her on the bed alone.
Kayrin is enjoying being left to sleep alone in her bedroom and discovering that time at school can be more fun than being at home.
How we reminisce about good old school days. I went to five schools in all. But the two that made the biggest impression on me had the motto "Simple in Virtue, Steadfast in Duty."
Some of my best teachers were there. In my primary school of SRK Convent Butterworth, there was the super fierce Ms Law. She made us tremble in fear but she also ensured I came out with straight As in the Standard 5 national exams. Mrs. Wong the librarian allowed us to scramble for books during library hour. She told us stories of her time at missionary boarding school.
In SM Convent Butterworth, I had a bigger host of teachers whose dedication made an imprint till now.
Madam Lee Mee Lin taught English in Secondary 1. She made us complete our essays in class. That made me enjoy writing so much that writing became a career for two decades. I must look her up. As our class teacher, she also started this question and answer time where we could drop questions anonymously into a box. A classmate asked about VD. She answered frankly.
There was Mrs. Thong our Geography teacher. Fierce and all, I later got to know her son and visited their home for years to come.
Mr. Saw, our Form 2 mathematics teacher, taught us the subject in a different way. We understood Maths! During one lesson, he drew circles with chalk on the pavements of school and told us to measure the ratio of the circumference to the diameter. That was our introduction to pi.
Mrs. Michael taught us Geography that year and she'd draw a map of Australia, South America and Africa free hand on the blackboard. She'd make us laugh too. I had many more great teachers and the two best ones I had at home. My parents. They taught others outside our home and they taught me everything from Mandarin to parts of Geography I didn't understand. While I was very sure I didn't want to be a teacher, the ones in my life I must salute and thank. Where'd I be without you.