Party Time

Been a long and tiring day today. Finally all the preparation came to fruition. Idlan's birthday party was a blast. The cake from Mama Min was a hit, the food was great and the venue ..... say no more.

Of course there was the initial concern of the weather. It has been raining all night and all morning. The boys also woke up late with the cool weather. The cake which we picked up last night also suffered a minor ..... injury. I mean the centerpiece went wonky and was in need of some last minute touch up. Luckily, Mama Min was obliging and came over to the party venue.

The turn-up was also great. I only invited close family. All who were invited came, and Idlan was left grinning from ear to ear carrying home his sack of presents. He opened the first one - a Lego car from his friend at school.

Right, I am being honest here. I need to go through some 400 snaps from the day - courtesy of my brother-in-law, Salleh. That will take some editing and will take the whole evening. I will be traveling to Penang tomorrow morning to attend my cousin's wedding. And there was also this small matter of the Champion's League final in the early hours of tomorrow morning. I'll probably give that one a miss I think.

I have already planned to take Monday off. Hopefully I can have some rest then. Maybe I can start writing about the birthday party then as well. Happy weekend.

Gearing Up

Strolling at The CurveHad to head out to The Curve area yesterday evening to do some last minute shopping. Idlan’s birthday party will be later this afternoon, and for the last few days, I had to go out taking Puan Anita around doing her chores. Everything seemed to be falling into place nicely and InsyaAllah we will have a grand party! 

Irfan said: "I think this is what we should do"First stop was at Mama Min’s swanky new apartment at Armanee Terrace. Very nice duplex units there! Jealous! The cake were delivered but very delicate. On the way back I will have to avoid all the speed bumps and drive at 50 km/h maximum. Ear plugs would be necessary with the honks I will hear from the more impatient drivers behind me later.

There was always time for a quick dodgem. Move!Next, The Curve, for a bit of shopping, then dinner, and more shopping. Puan Anita felt that the goody bags and party packs were pretty light weight still. So, she got some more stuffs to cram in.Diner at Marche, as requested by the birthday boy. Then a stroll. The Curve and the open air area sure looked nice in the evening, although it was still muggy and warm. Sure wish that we live around there but the trouble will be that we will spent too much money shopping. It was already difficult as it was now! 

Irfan still giving his opinionFinally we got everything sorted out. Back home, more wrappings and last minute decorating needed to be done. The party will be from 11, so better get everything sorted out  quick so that there will be no drama in the morning!

Counseling Needed?

Irfan's handy work

While doing some last minute shopping last night, I sat Idlan around the Lego table. I then continued to do my chores. Idlan was sat there with Irfan building with the bricks. Irfan built himself what I thought was age-appropriate ‘tower’ stuff or what not. As for Idlan? Oh! My God! Such a nerd! “Idlan, this is not about separating the colours! And you want to be an architect when you grow up?” Shall with this space!

Idlan started offThe end product ..... Gosh!Should I be concerned about the building he will be designing in the future ..... may be that will be the future trend, you never know!

Rais Yatim

I had a lot of comments when I made the tweet about Rais Yatim while scrambling to catch the scores for the recent Thomas Cup semi-final encounter between Malaysia and China - the one when Lee Chong Wei was thought a lesson by the all-dancing, half-naked Lin Dan. I was actually in the car, being driven up to Kuala Kangsar. I tried listening on the radios for radio commentary on any of the RTM channels, or even some sort of update if possible. Alas … there was none!

And this was the semi-finals when Malaysia eventually lost, but the point was in this day and age, information is a commodity and access to them were taken for granted. Therefore I resorted to twitter and what I got was point-by-point update of the score in almost real time. Let me repeat it again - RTM radio = no commentary or result update - twitter = real-time feed complete with shouts and the occasional swearing. Big difference there, and certainly not acceptable for 2010. To make the matter worst, only in January 2010, Datuk Seri Utama Rais Yatim, our Information, Communications and Culture Minister proclaimed that twitter was a bad cultural influence. I do agree with that to a certain extend so I was not criticising him for making such statement. The problem is, he should have come up with a viable alternative, so that those with real hunger for information have a venue to subscribe to. This made the statement, which was possibly well-meaning appear prejudiced and lack of insight. Perhaps my thoughts can be succinctly expressed more eloquently by Niki Cheong in his blog entry here. Happy reading!

6TD Nurses Day Party

It has been a yearly event internationally - The Nurses Week. Once a year they had a party in the ward. The nurses did a collection, bought each other prezzies and had a jolly good time. This year was no exception but I must say that this year’s event was the biggest I remembered at least in my ward - Ward 6TD.

When everything was still civilisedYes! Haemato-Oncology is not exactly a rosy subject. The patients stay with us for long period of time, staying in for a good month during their chemotherapy. The nurses and doctors tend to get to know them pretty well. We go through a lot of ups and downs with them. After a while, the patients also get to know us, the nurses and doctors. Some of them were even my Facebook contacts, and that brought down a layer or two in terms of communications. Some of them regularly tweet me and the best way to contact me would be through email as I don’t give away my phone numbers that readily.

On the other side, leukaemia and lymphoma is not exactly conditions that were easy to treat, and sometimes these “friends” of ours never made it through. Ward 6TD can then be a sorrowful place. Things can get depressing. I learned from way back to not feel guilty when I eat in front of patients or have a do like this, behaving like normal human beings. But having a do inside the ward can be awkward still.

The event yesterday was a great one. It was a shame that I can only join late on after my clinic. I finally made it after Jumaat prayers after a few phone calls from the ward sister. Luckily they have saved some food for me. The satay were still aplenty, the soto was set aside for me, so were the dessert. All the food were prepared by the nurses themselves, insisting on me trying all of them. By the time I was done, I could hardly walk! To all the nurses reading this .... much appreciated and Happy Nurses Day.

Slideshow for the party can be found here.