Putrajaya ~ My Blog Revisited...

Hi blog again! After the long silence, here I am again - I have just found myself having small portion of bihun and a 2 slices of sugared toast and a glass of 'teh tarik' at Old Town, Alamanda, Putrajaya. I don't really know the drive to even click on the blog and revisited all the previous posts - but, indeed there were some great recollection of writings in this blog of mind.

Enough of that.



Putrajaya is not so alien to me. Back in early 2000 I used to work in Cyberjaya, that is adjacent to this administrative capital. Those were the early days of both establishments. Food was indeed scarce. I mean looking for nice places to eat, let alone if we were deep in thought of looking for selection. As for banking we had to drive off a number of kilometers away for proper banking. Shopping? Don't start there.

Today I really got the chance to wander around, and drive around. This place is by far has changed so much. Much better than before. Lots of nice buildings (mainly government buildings) with various types of architecture slants. This whole place is so green, calm, serene and clean. The way I recall it, it used to be hot and too humid. The weather hasn't changed much I think, but the ideas of having more establishments such as office buildings and dwellings shape Putrajaya to the center it is today.

One of the many good things that I notice, there are no roadside stalls (the common view in downtown Kuala Lumpur). I guess the city council over here is very strict about that. Kudos to them. I have nothing against the stalls where people sell and eat foods for lunch and dinner etc., but it has to be done in a very planned manner. In Putrajaya, that is the case. Facilities around here is in abundance. From hospitals to recreational parks with jogging and cycling paths to mosques and the like. All can be found here. From what I heard, Hospital Putrajaya is one of the flagship public hospital. By flagship I mean, they have the latest facilities, well trained doctors and I also heard from the grapevine that it's one of the leading hospitals for cancer treatment. Best part of all, Malaysian would only need to pay only RM1.00 if you were an outpatient case. How great is that?

It is not heaven, far from it - of course it is not all nice and dandy here. I also came to know (through my conversations here), the property prices are skyrocketing here in Putrajaya. My friend told me that those high-end houses are owned or bought by people outside Putrajaya. To me, they should have a scheme for people who are genuinely working in Putrajaya (example public workers) since they were the ones that trail-blazed this area for it was estates of palm trees before.

In memory of Jimmy (2003-2011)

Jimmy died close to a week ago due to "old age", whatever that means. Jimmy does not live with me. He is back at my parents' house and not with me but to me, I regard him as "my pet" rather than anyone else's.

I got to know about the sad news today. In short - my heart sunk when I got the text from my sister. I can't really jot things down here, it is too overwhemingly sad really.

I had to take myself for a drive to calm myself down. I am not ashamed to admit I was in tears. Even up to now when I am penning this down, my eyes hurt due to amount of weeping I guess. Well, I can't write anymore. One day, I will dedicate an entry for Jimmy.

Jimmy - thanks for the lovely 8 years you have given me. Your memory lives on. You will be deeply missed.

Wrong way to start the day

I was woken up by a text this morning. I thought it was one of those texts, "Good morning" thingy, but no. It was a shocking text. Not really shocking, but it pissed me off.

It was from a friend, Nick [not the real name]. Apparently, recently (less than a month ago) Nick got a new job at a firm, Softech [not the real company's name] and he left his old firm Armstech [not real either]. So, I did not know that he has not told the truth with his ex colleagues at Armstech that he has joined the new firm, Softech. I did not know at all, at all.

So to cut the story short, a friend of Nick, Mark [also, not real] who is still with Armstech, called me the other day to talk (we got to know each other through Nick of course). Just casual talk. He called TWICE. I did not pick up. I was so damn busy, as always. 9-5pm is never good to talk. Well, then on the way back from work I called Mark. It was a nice gesture that I should return the calls.

Gist of the talk was pretty much nonsense. Nonsense. Nothing of any significance. And it led to the fact that I told Mark that I lunched with Nick and sent him off to his office (I didn't even say "new" office). And I realised something was not right. I realised Mark is assuming that Nick is not attached to any firms and works on his own now (freelance instructor at the gym etc.). I was puzzled and sensed that "perhaps this is how Nick wants to portray himself to his ex colleagues". I managed the situation VERY WELL. I mean, I managed to divert the conversation to something else.

So, after a while of not talking to Nick, I called him yesterday. We got to talk, and I asked him how he is doing at Softech etc. And I asked, why did I sense that his former colleagues at former workplace do not know that he is working for another firm. He explained to me. Well and good and now it is clear. And I told him I managed the situation well. So from now on, I know his stand on things as far as employment is concerned, he does not want people to know that he is working at a new place! I thought it ended there! No!

This morning I got a text from Nick saying that "Zul, Mark told me you were the one who called him!" What the F-word? Goodness gracious! He has to be kidding me. I called Mark to return his calls (which I purposedly did not answer) and the conversation WAS NOT scoped around to talk about Nick (as if I purposely called Mark to update Mark what Nick has been up to... puhlease!). Goodness me! From the text alone, I can conclude that Nick doesn't trust me and hence trying to get confirmation from Mark what the real story's like. So to me, that is a complete NO NO!

To be precise, I was pissed off. And I am still pissed off. I tried to call Nick to confront him. Well, the call went unanswered, as predicted. Even my text went unanswered as well. Well, I do not need this crap. I jotted it down here to clear my chest and head. That is all. This has not impacted my day at any level, but it is clear indication of capacity of "certain" individuals.

* Off to lunch around UPM area, apparently there's a nice restaurant that serves NS food over there. See ya people...

2011

Good Bye 2010 - You were exhausting...!

+ Sorry never mean to have be a shocker with this pic to begin my first entry in year 2011

I do not know what to post here. I was driving to work today and I got a bad news from a dear friend - he said, his older brother has passed away this morning. It hit me. That was 4th death in a row, in less than a week. People that I know. People that I care really. I am still as shocked.

I could not travel to go and attend the funeral. I guess, surah Al Fatihah from far, is the most that I can do. Al Fatihah to the four who have gone to the eternal phase of life. Like what I BB'ed to my boss today, because she was concerned whether I was OK knowing that there's been 4 deaths in less than a week. I said "Hidup lawannya mati... it is a sure thing. All we can do is to accept fate, really"

Anyway, here I am, writing again. I am not sure what 2011 holds for me. The first week has been nothing but a drag. But I managed to go through that fine. I know this will be a challenging year - I am talking generally about work. Since personal and family life has been going on OK. So, that leaves me with work life to worry about. I can't really say much here, you never know who is going to stop by here and sniff. You never know. :)

+ The transformation from old to new.

As far as blogging is concerned, I was not too happy with 2010 since I did not write much. Well, I was busy getting the house ready (finally it was completed in May 2010). And now, it has been 8 months since I moved in. I like the way it has progressed. So I can't wait to host friends, if there are in need for a place to stay while they are in Kuala Lumpur. So far it has hosted Luke, Barry, Xavier, Allen, Andy, my family of course and many more. :) Grand!

+ Xavier, Barry and Allen came to Malaysia in 2010, one of the highlights. And I managed to "reciprocate" by visiting Dublin in Dec 2010. Maybe this year to Canada? Ohh...

I guess I will stop there. Just imagine, I got into the office, wanting to sort all the documents our, and instead, I am writing this entry instead. Well, at least, this is something that I am proud of :) Haha. You know how Monday is like, so to start of with something that I can see the result of, well, it should count for something.

One fine Friday afternoon

One fine Friday afternoon, I found myself at the Sri Mungkal Mosque, Tanjung Ipoh for my Friday prayers. I sat almost at the same time when the khutbah was about to commence. The khatib announced that the title of the khutbah (sermon) would be “AIDS”. I was rather intrigue by the choice of subject matter to be talked about. I was keen to know the substance of it.

My verdict – not bad at all; considering I was back in my kampong. Think about the kind of crowd that the message was channelled to. I wasn’t sure how many were processing as the khatib went on. Silently I was pondering, how far we have come. Sure that we are not liberal country, but who wants that anyway. Thinking far back 20 years ago, we would not imagine the words in the like of “kissing”, “bodily fluid” etc. would stand among the Quranic verses cited as an integral part of the khutbah.

To inject a little fear, the content cited some stats, from one or two isolated cases in Malaysia in 1986, we have so far recorded 80,000 odds HIV+ people in Malaysia at present. It was simply amazing.

Suddenly I took my thought a bit further than that. I think we can use this medium to diffuse knowledge on all sorts of things that impact the society at large regardless of racial background, social status, education background and others. One that is quite close to us is technology impact on us all.

Take for an example – a khutbah around mobile phone use and abuse. That is somewhat simple but the angle can be from the misuse of it. As to date people are misusing the mobile phones to take and circulate obscene pictures using those to blackmail etc. The khutbah can be used to channel guiding principles in using mobile phones and the repercussion around the misuse. At the same time, it would be music to ears of the mobile operators if the khatib reiterate the importance of being a part of this technological shift in life to reap the benefit of it such as to communicate more efficiently.

With that, I am so looking forward to come across my next observation in life and talk about it on this blog.