Friday, November 27, 2009 at 7:56AM 
Performing my prayers at Taman Melati with my Dad-in-law. Will be heading to my Mum's at Bukit Antarabangsa for Qorban later in the morning. Just realised that I left my wallet at home. No cash! Preparing to be sheepish when the Tok Siak comes around for collections!
Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 7:12PM 
As part of the school holiday activities, Marche at their the Curve outlet held a pizza-making workshop. We enrolled Idlan in. The workshop started just after lunch, ran for a couple of hours. The kids were thought about hygiene to start with. Everything, from apron to the dough were provided. All we had to do was turn up.
First, the dough need flattening! I kept asking him to do it mamak style but he refused to get in touch with his roots!
I think he needs a stoolThere were about 12 of them in the group and I think Idlan was among the youngest. Few of them I am sure were already in standard 4 at least. They started off with just the base, then adding it the tomato paste and toppings of cheese and pineapple. Since Idlan was too small, he had to go onto a platform in order to reach the trimmings and put them on his pizza. Idlan was grinning all the way. After the pizza was prepared, all of them went into the oven. It took about 20 minutes to cook and the young chef took the time to mingle, take pictures and drink some juice to cool themselves down! Even though it was not exactly Hell's Kitchen, it was still pretty hard work for them. Eating time came next. Unfortunately we did not get to keep the cute little aprons. In the meantime, Irfan was sulking as he also wanted to join in. Unfortunately he is still too small.
Now comes the hard partThe staffs there were really friendly and I can tell they were really prepared for the event. It was held at the front entrance of the restaurant, in the shades by the main walkway. The instructions given were very appropriate to the young boys and girls. They were showed how to carry out the instructions. After everything was done, the participants were given a certificate, plus the recipe for the pizza they have just made.
... and it's ready!
Irfan reviewing his brother's baking
After everything is done, it was back to Kung Fu time!All in all, it was a very well run event. There are other workshops coming on, but I don't think Idlan is keen to bake muffins. The pizza-making workshop is held on Monday, Thursday and Friday afternoons during the school holidays. It cost RM20 to register. Just Google for Marche or click here or here to find out a bit more. It was great fun, I would recommend it to other parents for sure. The slideshow for the workshop can be seen here.
Idlan, Marche, The Curve, children baking workshop, pizza, school holidays, workshop in Diary, Review Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 11:55AM 
It seems that the first day of any of my long break involves sending the car to the garage for servicing. That was what happened this morning. Off my Kelisa went. Mind you, the mileage - er kilometers in that beast is almost 100000. Not bad. Once that nestled in the workshop, I went to Bukit Bintang to settle my bills and others. I also took a look at the Nokia E72. It was not much bigger than my current E71. It has 5MP camera and still no compass. I asked if they do trade-ins. One of the seller there said he will take-in my E71 for RM700. Hmmm! But the price for the E72 was quoted for RM1650. I think that that was a bit too expensive. I won't pay any higher than RM1400. I'll give another couple of months.
I spent the afternoon being Anita's taxi. She wants to explore some more private schools around here. We ended up visiting 4 schools. We have a couple more lined up for tomorrow morning. So it's going to be another long day. After all that was done, we went to our games dealer at Plaza Damas. As promised, I have to get the boys the PSP they have been shouting about. I got them a matching pair. The console themselves were still affordable. What made things expensive are the trimmings, covers, bags, memory cards, crack programs and the lot! I am officially broke now!
E72, PSP, Pavilion, Plaza Damas in Diary Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 7:34AM 
Welcome to the evening stroll at The CurveI will be off from today. Will not be back to work for a week. Taking time off for the coming Raya and all. It was the school holidays. Right after work, we went out for dinner outside. Nothing fancy, steamboat at IKANO. Since we got there early, we went to browse at IKEA. Anita needed a new whiteboard to teach the boys maths and stuff. We couldn't believe that it was sold out! Yes, it's school holidays. But I don't think all parents are teaching their kids during the break ... Or at least I don't think.
Yes! I made Idlan carry some stuff in IKEA!
We quickly shuffled for steamboat right after that. Done with dinner, we just strolled along. There is an offer going on at England Optical upstairs. You can get more discount using UOB Card, so I started thinking ..... That Oakley looks nice. The glasses I'm wearing now is almost 10 years-old anyhow. Tried a few. Anita insisted that I get one. Yes it was an Oakley. It will be ready in the next couple of days. Just in time for our trip to Fraser's Hill. The only problem I think I will have with it will be the shape of the lens. It will be a curved one due to the frame and since I have astigmatism, I reckon that the glass will be thick at the edge. Hopefully it will still be OK!
The decor being set upNext, we brought the boys to the playground. They need to burn off some energy, plus leaving Anita to do some shopping of her own. The Xmas lights and trees are being installed at the Curve at the moment. I am sure by the time they are ready they will look nice. I can still remember the decor from a couple of years back. That was really stunning. They will have to do something special to beat that, and also the current one that is up at Pavilion. Before we leave, we also stopped by at Marche. During the school holidays, they have activities for kids. There is a pizza-making lesson 3 times a week and we signed Idlan up for this Thursday. I will write about it after Idlan is done with that. It cost RM20 for the lesson but they provide all the material and gears. That should be fun!
As for tomorrow, I have a lot of errands to do. Need to pay the bills. Maybe heading to Sungai Wang to browse as well.
Disclaimer - This blog was written while listening to Brett Dennen - cool stuff!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 3:20PM 
Some deep stuff going on here. It concerns the health of our academic performance and how to improve it. We are expectig an suit as a Faculty by the Malaysia Qualifications Agency as a quality assurance for our teaching programme. Submitted mine a few months back. Hopefully I will
Not be called for review.