Cuti-Cuti Kuantan

Feb 282010

As the saying goes, “a wise traveller never despises his own country” [Carlo Goldoni].

I have just completed the “cuti-cuti Kuantan” plan with my friends. Funny that I organised a trip to my own hometown, but it was fun. We had a great day at Sepat beach and Sungai Pandan waterfall. We had great dinner at the famous seafood area Tanjung Lumpur, and we had one civilised lunch at the biggest mall on the east coast side, the East Coast Mall.


From cuti-cuti kuantan, posted by Farah Inani on 3/03/2010 (132 items)

on the road to kuantan…


rumah mirin the bomb


rumah mirin the bomb again
pantai!


the best trees ever!






we are here!


dinner ikan bakar
waiting…
…and waiting…
…food still not here…


…waitinggg…..
leko sedap!
everyone got big drinks.
…with 2 straws…


…and double that…
everyone…
…but me :(


makan!
sotong goreng tepung SEDAP!
saw this on the way to the waterfall :p


waterfall the bomb!!!


bergayut. literally.



The Thinker





kena cekik pun senyum :p


waterfall monkey
we went to civilization for lunch



and back to the beach :D




muz trying to jump into a hole?


AHAHAHAHAHAHA!




BBQ at night


the chef


farewell rumah mirin the bomb…
after driving back from kuantan, unhealthy fast food never looked better :)


Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

I do hope we can organise such trips at other places in the future. :)

Personal Economic Downturn

Feb 242010

It looks like I am heading for a personal economic recession, if my financial records are held to be accurate and reliable.

A quick read-up on Wikipedia revealed that recession, or otherwise called economic downturn, is defined as “a period when GDP falls (negative real economic growth) for at least two quarters.”¹ It is noted that “some economists prefer a definition of a 1.5% rise in unemployment within 12 months”, but that indicator may not be applicable for my personal financial records, since I am not looking into being unemployed anytime soon.

Am I heading towards a recession? My financial records are telling me so. I discovered that for the past three months, I have personally registered deficit budgets for each month. In December 2009, I registered a deficit of RM 493; in January 2010, deficit of RM 734; in this month alone, it stood at RM 1,813 and growing. Obviously there are justified reasons for the excess of expenditure over income, but if we hold on to the recession indicator, it’s already a quarter of negative (personal) economic growth.

It could not be helped that some of my budgeted items have been completely spent just a lil’ bit a month after the first half of the financial year. I have busted my clothing, home electrical, home kitchenware, and travelling budget; while my personal care (ah the cost of vanity!), food dining, social responsibility, and computer budgets are running wild.

I am not complaining of not enough money, because I know that my current salary is more than enough to support my living. What caught me in this possible recession is my lust for perfection – in terms of look, health, happiness, and living – while wanting to have it as fast as it possibly could have come. It looks like I need to put some brake on my past-paced life, for I need to enjoy what I have now.

Come July this year, I am looking to see if I manage to turn the tide on my financial standing and gain considerable savings out of it – I have a PS3, a new LCD TV, and a sound system listed in my wish list for this year. :P

Reached the Limit

Feb 182010

A wise man will re-evaluate his choices once he reached his limit.

(1) It was about time that I reached my treadmill limit – a limit of speed that I could not breach on my first attempt, after a series of steady increase that have seen me running from the speed of 6.0 km/hour to 9.2 km/hour in less then a month. It was a monumental leap of speed that I have gained, but it will about to be a tough challenge ahead.

Today, I attempted the non-stop 30 minutes treadmill run at 9.4 km/hour. It was fine for the first 10 minutes, with me managed to perform my additional 1 km/hour burst for a minute. It was into the 20th minutes that I felt the strain. I had to slow the speed down to 8.5 km/hour. Merely 5 minutes after that, I had to cut short my planned duration due to signs of me reaching my limit.

Not only I had to cut short the exercise, and had to skip the customary weight lifting and machine-assisted exercises as well due to a level of fatigue that I had not felt for quite some time. It was not helping much that I felt a bit dizzy while I was at work, plus the mounting pressure that accumulated from office works and office politics.

(2) It was about time that I realised how dangerous it is for my savings account to reach it’s lowest limit, especially when it is linked to my major credit cards. Due to heafty imposition of service charges by the solicitors and evaluators for my housing loan, I was left with less than RM 400 in my bank account. It could not be helped that my major debtors are tight with cash as well.

Today, I had to help settle the Sports and Recreational Club (SRC) booking for badminton courts for this Saturday’s mini carnival. Somehow or another, I had to settle the payment fast – and luckily I had asked the facility manager if they accept payments in the form of online bank transfer. With an additional RM 300 deposited into my account by the SRC’s presiden

Ushering the Year of Tiger

Feb 142010

If he was still alive, he will be around 22 years old this year.

Today is the celebration of new Chinese New Year, with the fierce tiger as the zodiac sign of the year. According to this website, “the oldest and most important festival in China is the Spring Festival. Better known as the Chinese New Year, it is a time for celebration for millions of Chinese all over the world. The Spring Festival celebrates the Earth coming to life and the beginning of plowing and planting.”

Chinese tiger zodiac

Chinese tiger zodiac

CNY as it’s abbreviation is a unique celebration – it is one of those that are not specially tied down to any religion. It is about a culture of a race of people that follows a set of living code, and yet they are themselves diverse in religious and personal beliefs. CNY is one of the celebrations outside of Islam-influenced occasions that Muslims will not have problem celebrating it with friends and family.

I have never specifically celebrated CNY, apart from wishing some of my friends. There are no immediate family members that celebrated this joyous event for me to tag along with, or any close Chinese friends that I have visited for CNY before. I have not even celebrated the CNY open houses that our politicians like to brandied around – the one that we will see a lot of ugly Malaysians wasted good food because they can’t chew more than what they took on their plate.

But this year of Tiger is special for me. As stated in the opening remark, he will be around 22 years old this year if he is still around. That is such an old age for a cat, and it has been close to 12 years that I have missed him, but I can still remember him dearly.

Orange cat that looks like Tiger

Orange cat that reminds me of Tiger

His name was Tiger, and as the name implies, he was orange in colour. He was not as chubby and elegant (or irritating, depends on a person’s point of view) as Garfield, but he was one of the rare cat that had pure orange fur on all parts of his body, save for his bottom belly. We found him with his other siblings when I was around 2-3 years old back in Ampang Jaya, and we took three kittens for adoption – but only Tiger remained with us for such a long time.

I practically grew up with him during my primary school years, with lots of memories in between. My love for cats were nurtured by him – it was this strong male cat that somehow survived all the naughty things I did as a child. There are bits of memories of me and him that I could not forget until today, that will (hopefully) forever I will cherish.

For this Year of Tiger, I kick off this celebration in honour of Tiger, the domestic cat that was part of my life, and has contributed something that made me as who I am now.

Another Site Milestone

Feb 132010

Today there’s another milestone achieved on the development and usability of this personal site.

It started with some free leisure time available while I’m off for a holiday in my hometown. This personal site of mine needed some attention on the codings, therefore I went to the site’s control panel to perform the needed changes. A check on the site’s auto-script WordPress seetings revealed that the site’s front-end system needed some upgrade. In order to ensure that everything will run smoothly after I upgraded the front-end, I decided to check on updates for all the plugins used on this site.

The beauty of a freeware front-end system like WordPress is that the development community is strong and vibrant. There will always be something freeware developed for the benefit of all. While I was updating all the plugins that I used, I stumbled upon a plugin that is ranked as one of the top downloads – WPtouch iPhone – and it instantly piqued my interest. It is, to summarise, a plugin that will allow your site to be displayed in a mobile device using a custom skin to ease reading access, among others. I decided to download it and give it a try.

It was a few hours after I have installed this plugin that I gave it a try on my iPod Touch. My reaction: this is one superb plugin! I did not expect it to transform my site into something that’s mobile friendly, as if my site was made for reading pleasures on a mobile device! The site looks beautiful even at the default skin’s setting, and the posts and pages (with minimal settings) are easily accessible and readable.

I am happy that I have stumbled upon this plugin, and it is a recommended plugin for all small-time WordPress users like me out there.

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