Baby Mind Map

I was pregnant when I sat for my 2nd level CFA exam. I only studied 3 months for that exam and I passed it, a lucky thing really – since I could hardly sit on that exam chair without wiping under my knees every few minutes because I was sweating so much (pregnant women tend to feel very hot!) and with the nausea I felt later in the exam when somebody had the gall to vomit in the hall during the exam – as if she had the time to do that with all the writing we had to do in that exam!

My eldest son, who was then in my womb, and now 5 years old, (Alhamdulillah) was actually affected by those 3 months of my studying, memorising notes and drawing mind maps until the wee hours of morning. The reason I know this is because; he likes to memorise things and he likes to learn. And, I just found out – he can draw mind maps!

He was studying the London Underground (Tube) map the other day, in fact he has been studying the map everyday this last week and suddenly came out with this diagram, using the correct colour code of the map; H: Hammersmith & City (Pink line), D: District (Green line), C: Circle (Yellow line) J: Jubilee (Grey line). P: Picadilly (Dark Blue line).

And the rest?

‘What’s this abang?’ I said, pointing at the 2 circles, on the leftside of the smiley face.
‘A 'spotted' spaceship!’ he said proudly.
‘Okay….what about this one?’ I said, pointing at the ‘123’ below the smiley face.
‘Numbers!’

Right.

Well, obviously those 2 branches of the mind map have nothing to do with the London Underground. But what the heck.

I guess it’s true what my friend, (who sat for that exam with me but unfortunately did not pass) told me: ‘It’s not fair! You had two heads answering those questions – it’s no wonder you passed!’ Well, I guess she was right. My baby was studying those mind maps with me and helped me with my exams – how else could I have passed that crazy exam?

Simply amazing.

My Literary Journey

I used to read a lot of books when I was little. There was just no stopping me. I would just lie down with my book on my bed until the sun sets and the room turns dark and still I will be there on the bed – not even bothering to stand up for 2 seconds to switch on the lights, so engrossed was I in my books. I would simply enlarge my eyes (or squint them?) so that I can read the words with whatever meagre light that comes through the window or from the light already switched on outside my room. I remember many times when my father or mother looked inside my room while I was reading and switched the light on for me. If I did not finish the book during the night before I go to sleep, I would reach for my book first thing the next day while still lying in bed and I will stay there for hours more until I eventually finish that book or was called for lunch. It was that bad.

I remember reading my first Enid Blyton when I just entered standard 2. I was 8 and my 2 older sisters kept bragging about the wonderful stories they had read in a book called The Faraway Tree. I guess they said it too many times that they made the young me curious enough to take the book, open to the first page and tried reading it. Of course, I was already reading fairly well at the time – not storybooks though – just those gawd awful Peter and Jane books with illustrations of dull and very British looking creatures. And not even many of those – come to think of it, I just read the occasional book in class and that was really it. Until that Faraway Tree book.

It was that book, and then The Enchanted Wood. And then there were those Mr Pink Whistle books. The list goes on and looking back, I think they certainly affected my childhood. The Naughtiest Girl books which I truly loved made me want to be a little rebellious and a prefect at school (book: The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor), and some of the Malory Towers and St Clare books I read made me want to go to boarding school. (Of course, my experiences in a Malaysian boarding school later disillusioned me from the wonderment that is boarding school although I have to say that my truly brilliant experience after that in a Scottish boarding school quite made up for it.) And I do remember being crazy about the Five Find Outers and Dog books which were truly, truly fabulous and made me want to try and disguise myself just like Fatty in that book (ah, Fatty, you were indeed my childhood hero!). And then came the Famous Five books, which I enjoyed tremendously and made me want to become a tomboy just like Georgina. Yeah, laugh all you want but at that age, I was very impressionable and idolized a lot of the characters in the books I read and dreamed to be just like them. If Harry Potter was born in the 1980s I would have idolized Hermione without a doubt and would definitely have made it my purpose in life to learn more about wizards and witches and things like that. Yes, now you know that I do revel in reading the Harry Potter series, although this, is only after I watched the 3rd movie which absolutely changed my perception of the books and I realised that maybe, maybe this new author was a worthy competition for Enid Blyton after all. (Wonder if Enid Blyton could have been a billionaire like J.K. Rowling if she lived now, in these commercial times?)

A natural progression for me after the Enid Blyton’s mysteries is the Nancy Drew mysteries as there were quite a few of those at home. I enjoyed those and bought quite a number of the series but from the age of 11 onwards, I was also reading children’s fantasy. Again, I was introduced to these books by one of my sisters who I think was introduced to them by my brother. What a marvellous, marvellous experience it was at the time, reading about all those imaginary children who can go across worlds and travel through time. And they usually have a mission – to find their parents, to help a friend, to overthrow an evil ruler or simply to find their way home. I remember I had no favourite authors – simply because I just read what was available to me at home and so I was introduced to authors like Susan Cooper and John Bellairs. Oh yes, I read C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books too (I can’t remember when, exactly) but somehow I wasn’t really impressed by that talking lion and children who do not have as much character as Fatty or Georgina. As for Tolkien, I only started on those when I was in secondary school, when I bought a brand new copy of the Lord of The Rings in an MPH during one of those outings I had when my parents came to visit me at boarding school. I have to say that earlier on, I did look for any of Tolkien’s books in the bookstores of my hometown but sadly I couldn’t find any copies. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Tolkien too much because I did not really finish his books – the whole thing was too tedious for me, although (I’m ashamed to admit) I absolutely enjoyed the three movies.

Believe it or not, I started reading Sidney Sheldon when I was in Standard 6. God knows what those books did to my hormones at that age. I blame it all on my very good friend who passed me a well read copy of Windmills of The Gods during one of the holidays. And then I discovered that there was also one copy at home and there were many other Sidney Sheldon books belonging to my dad on the top shelf of that tall bookcase in what used to be our library cum praying room. That’s when I discovered other authors like Eric Van Lustbader and Robert Ludlum. I remember my wonderful late father, who never stopped me from reading those ‘forbidden’ thick books, actually recommended that I read The Icarus Agenda even when my mother would say things like “Sudah-sudah lah asyik baca buku pasal seks aje.” (Enough reading those books about sex!) Obviously, there were sexual scenes in many of those books and sometimes I do wonder why my father was so liberal about it. But one thing for sure about my father, he never stopped his children from making our own choices and his encouragement to read these books goes to show that he prefers us to discover things for ourselves and be open minded about them. That, and the fact that he probably thought it was just a good story – sex scenes aside (indeed, those were good too!) We even discussed about what happened in that book after I finished it. How truly wonderful was my father?

However, I would not be grateful to my mother if I just mention about her effect on my reading journey in that one sentence above. She was the one who encouraged me to read before my school years and even set aside a short period of time after her Maghrib prayers to teach me English from a children’s book with a character called ‘Farmer Fred’. I remember reading 1 page of the book per night and discovering new words like ‘chicken’ and ‘sheep’ and then confusing them with ‘kitchen’ and ‘ship’. What a wonderful, wonderful journey Farmer Fred and I had – I still remember Farmer Fred’s smiling face and the wonderful things he did at the village fair when he wasn’t tending to his sheep. Looking back, I think, that experience instilled in me the love that I have for books and the English language.

I remember there was a period of time when there was a draught of books in my life. Believe it or not, the only books that were available in abundance at my old school were those Mills & Boon’s books (and by abundance I mean rows and rows and rows of them in the library) and the ‘class reader’ which were books given out during our English lessons and were ‘compulsory’ for us to read. I remember consoling myself that at least I’m reading these class readers, so it’s not a complete draught. In fact, the only source of good books I had in school was my friends. It was through friends I discovered authors like George Orwell, Jane Austen, and Ken Follet and I thank the generous souls who used to pass story books around at school, without caring (or realising) that the books will definitely come back to them worse for wear and a particular friend who used to bring and recommend books to me every time she came back from the school holidays.

And so it was really at home that I got the interesting books to read and even then, I discovered that I could not just read anything and everything under the sun. And my tastes have evolved since then too. And I still feel that I’m not reading enough, for I know at least 4 people who read a lot more than I do. However, I feel at the least, I MUST try to read all the books in THIS LIST. At the moment I’m stuck with the romance genre for a while (it has been 1 year now) and I have a TBR (to be read) list in this genre as long as the hair of the medieval heroines in these books. But I know I will eventually tire of them and then, I will be staring and staring at the book shelves of book shops like 'Books etc.' and 'Borders' to find the perfect book to read. Until then, I have 3 books coming through the post (Amazon and ebay) and 2 already at home and not finished.

My literary journey continues on...

Ilford Malaysian Fest

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I went to the Ilford Malaysian Fest a few weekends ago - just wanted to share these 2 pics with you.

There was a cultural show during the fest - with some dancers dancing makyong or some other traditional dances. I think there were some male dancers too, with kuda kepang but I didn't wait to see them because I was really there for the food stalls.


But imagine my amusement went I saw the musicians. NOT ONE of them were Malaysian. They were instead dodgy looking mat salehs wearing songkok and baju Melayu - some even looking very much like some rocker melayu in a raya edition URTV with their long curly locks, sun glasses and open necked baju!

It was a funny sight although they played well enough. I suppose they couldn't find any traditional Malay music clubs/ groups here in the UK.

A pity. I should have liked to play that gamelan myself..if only I had known how to.

(as usual, I apologise if the pics are not very sharp - as my normal readers know, I take my pics with my Nokia N70. With enough light, they can turn out quite good, but a slight movement when clicking can reduce the pics to a blur..)

Sweet Red Chicken

(Ayam masak merah)

As usual, my recipes are really for people like me who are living overseas and want a taste of home using whatever ingredients that are available here. Enjoy cooking!


A. 4 pieces of chicken, with skin
Some turmeric powder
Salt to taste

B. 1 bombay onion
2-3 cloves garlic

Basic Malay aromatic spices:
1”-2” cinnamon stick
2-3 cloves
1 star anise
2-3 cardamon seeds

1.5 tsp chilli powder or more if preferred
1.5 ” ginger, sliced into strips
3 - 4 tsp tomato puree
2 Tbs tomato ketchup
3-4 tbs fresh milk
½ Bombay onion sliced into strips
¼ cup frozen peas
Oil for frying
Pinch of sugar - optional

Mix ingredients A together and fry in hot oil until chicken is cooked and crispy on the outside – but not too hard to bite into. Set aside. Blend (in a blender) ingredients B. Fry the spices in hot oil for 1-2 minutes and pour in the blended mixture, ginger strips and chilli powder - cook for 8 - 10 minutes or until mixture turns into a darker colour. Stir occasionally. Add tomato puree, milk, tomato ketchup and stir. If mixture looks a little dry – add a few tbs oil used to fry the chicken. Add the fried chicken together with the onion strips. Stir. Add the peas once the onions are cooked/ 2-3 minutes later. Add salt and sugar. Leave for a while (5 mins), on very low heat before removing.

Back To Active Mode

What a brilliant week I had with my husband at home and spending time with the children. And he was in a generous mood too throughout the whole week because he had passed some exams and somehow he decided, in order to give himself a treat, he will treat the family instead!

And so I got to buy lots of new clothes for myself – and NOT at car boot sales either! So, to my family and friends who have been reading about my despair of not getting to buy new clothes – you may now throw away your tissue papers and rest assured that I have had the pleasure to indulge in my repressed addiction and...I am happy. Alhamdulillah.

So where exactly did we go this last week? We went to a lot of shops obviously, because the summer sale started last week and so there were a lot of shops to visit and mountains of clothes under £5 to rummage through. I bought a few items at the Next sale – only to return half of them the next day- they close the changing rooms during these sales you see, so customers just horde in and get whatever they can and return whatever they don’t want the next day. At that point, I was actually cursing British fashion because of their current (and forever ongoing) shabby trend – has anybody noticed that we Asians dress better than these Brits? But I still managed to get from that shop and various others, a decent skirt, trousers, some blouses and a (really unnecessary) dress.

Alas, after being given the freedom to buy 'whatever I want' in clothes and going in and out of several changing rooms, I have decided that my love for buying new clothes has deserted me somewhere in between buying that dress and that skirt and I will not buy anymore in these high street shops (at least in the very near future). However, I still find buying cheap used clothes that still have plenty of wear in them at car boot sales irresistible.

And so we also went to a car boot sale in Chingford near the reservoir. The weather was fine – sun was shining but it was not too hot for there were plenty of clouds and it was very breezy walking down that sloping field where the sale took place. We came near closing time - the boot sale started at 6am and was supposed to end at noon - so some Mercedes and BMW driving sellers were already selling their goods very, very cheap – imagine 3 pieces of good quality adult clothing for 50p! (Yes, now you get it - these car boot sellers are rich people who just want to get richer by selling their own used stuff.) Now, that’s better than any summer sale in any high street shop. My children as usual got plenty of clothes and a few toys for themselves and they ended up playing with one on the grass, oblivious to all the people who passed by.

And was it on Thursday that we went to get some Malaysian food at Oriental City on the other side of London, in Colindale? The place is quite far from where we live but we didn’t have anything else planned so when I suggested the place, my husband simply shrugged, ‘Why not?’ There were some Malaysian faces there too. But the smiles exchanged went no further than just that as the food and drinks arrived. The children had their – ‘at home also got’ - nasi goreng, and we had kuey teow and roti canai. The first two dishes were cooked by our friend, a Takaful man turned chef, who's working part time there while his wife, a medical doctor is pursuing something or other in a university here in London. The roti canai came from a separate stall and was absolutely glorious. And I really have to say here, even better than some that I’ve tasted back home! And the drinks, THE DRINKS were fabulous! We had Fresh Orange Blended (£2.50) and Watermelon pearl drink (£3.00) – such thirst quenchers because it was a very hot day and there’s no air conditioning in the food court of Oriental City (beware if you plan to go in the summer!) And of course, my eldest son had to throw up in the last few drops of my watermelon juice – I nearly cried!

And there was a trip to the park at Ilford, a town nearby. The park is much better than any I’ve been to in central London, in my opinion – there was a large field where some people were flying their kites and kicking some balls – there were lots of shady trees, and a playground and a lake u can row boats in. It is a very large and nice place, indeed. My sons chased after a squirrel and played with their ‘magic sticks’ while my husband and I ate the nasi dagang we bought at a Malaysian Fest in the town centre – that was why we were there in Ilford, in the first place, you see.

In between these were of course shops, shops and more shops. We even went as far as Kent to go to the large and modern Bluewater shopping mall. Shoot me but I still feel that car boot sales are best.

Overall I had a very, very good time this last week but I pity my husband who just successfully jumped over another hurdle in his professional course but did not spare more than £5 for himself. Thank you, my darling, for the good time you showed us - I will repay you in the ways I know how.

Now, better get into the kitchen to cook something nice for his dinner...

Old School Shoe

I was walking along Oxford Street with my husband and the boys in central London and saw this shoe in the window of one of the many shoe shops along the crowded high street.

Look at the price tag!

And they paid good money to those shoe designers for that?

The 'Supermom' Is Working

My husband is on leave for 1 week from his work. So I have to attend to his needs and the children's at home.




The summer holidays have just begun. My eldest is at home all day but now he has a tummy bug and a temperature. So I have to look after him and see that he takes his medicine.


My youngest has a small blister on his left foot – due to being overactive and not knowing when to rest his feet. He says ‘Oww!’ every time he remembers his ‘boo-boo’ and demands a plaster on it even though it has really healed. So I have to attend to his attention-seeking antics.




I am, therefore, not available for at least 1 week. Hope to be able to write a more interesting entry after all this is over.

Until then...