Yearly Archives: 2001

08 January 2001 — 02.22

What a weekend… we’re quite busy (argh even forgot to look for Data Network notes for Hery) had an invitation from our friends in Wolverhampton, then in Sunday the kids made us busy – but they deserved it.

I truly envy my father, he just have some shops in the market – but he managed to raise us properly (even sent me abroad) and most importantly he had a lot of time for his children. That’s because he works for himself, he set his own worktime, not set by his employer. And now he’s just enjoying his life, mainly just taking care his youngest child (Arif, 4 years old).

But these hasn’t come easily. My mother told me of what he had gone through in his early days – his struggling with his first shops, people cheating on him, how many times he was in the verge of bankruptcy, etc.
He pulled through all of them.

I don’t think I have the strength yet to go through all of those – that’s why I just work for someone else. But I hope one day I could become like my father, and make him proud of me.


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08 January 2001 — 01.47

Just had a discussion with a Shiite/Syiah/Shee’ah/Shi’ah guy in a mailing list. This guy is promoting the ideals of Shi’ite to other muslims in the list. Problem is, Shi’ite is not even recognised as muslim by the muslim scholars:

http://alcor.concordia.ca/~msa/shia.html

The Shi’ite are big problem for us, muslims. They are shouting to everyone “hey we’re THE muslim”. Yet they kill the innocents by the act of terrorism – including other muslims (especially the Sunni), so what would stop them from killing/doing injustice to non-muslims…

The scholars were not shy at all at describing the falseness of them, so I don’t think I would. I won’t waste more of my time on them, I’ll just give them the URL, and hopefully I’d be able to devote my time to other more useful things.


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05 January 2001 — 14.15

This morning when my wife was waiting for me in the parking lot, a man came and examined my car. While she was wondering what he’s up to, he came and said “I’m looking for a car (and yours looks great) did you ever have any problem driving it?” and continued to chat with her for sometime.
That made it TWICE some complete strangers complimented my car.
Moral of the story? You don’t need to have a Ferrari Testarossa to have strangers praising your car 😉
(just kidding! I’m not some kind of praise-maniac guy or something.. yuck)

My car is just a small, simple Nissan. But I gotta admit this particular model (year 2000, K11 ?) do looks good, also the color (China blue).
However, the original reasons for me to choose it was simply for its price (can you believe that I bought it for less than 7000 quid, including tax+insurance+RAC), low insurance rate (it’s a one litre model) and reliability (Nissan cars are quite well-known for this).

Cool fact, I bought it from Internet (I’m such a geek, I can’t resist the temptation) – http://www.autohit.com
They’re basically a broker, when you ask for a car they’ll query their dealers network and give you the best deal(s). I was pleasantly surprised too when I realised that they also provide customer aftersales service, along with the Nissan dealer. Some facts for the Micra:

The specs
History of the Micras
More cool facts
Nissan Micra user group – here in UK!
Photos of some other Micras and their owners


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05 January 2001 — 09.58

This is just so unbelievably stupid – http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010104/od/blood_dc_1.html 🙂

The girls were quite happy this morning. Sarah was trying to speak when she saw me and Helen speaking. We laughed so hard seeing her attempt, it was very funny to see and hear her making those sounds. Anisah was happy but then jealous (a bit) to her sister and then happy again – well, generally that’s her behaviour for the past several weeks. We must keep on remembering to pay extra attention to her.

Umm… suddenly I can’t use the mouse…?


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04 January 2001 — 05.53

Kids woke up around 2 pm, taking care and play with them a bit, and then sleep again around 4 pm. Bad move. I woke up late and dizzy, ended up coming to the office late as well; and there are still a lot of things I haven’t done (note to self: transfer Sarah’s tape recording to MP3 and send to granny).
Somebody is talking in a mailing list, saying that the God had talked to him, he’s a new prophet. Oh puh-leeeeeeeeze. What a laugh 🙂
The moderator kicked him.

Raising kids is so much work. I enjoys it very much, but then I don’t have time/just forgot other things such as relationship with the neighbors/my parent/friends, maintenance work (home/car/etc), computer research stuff, learning more about Islam, and also (most importantly) time for me and Helen together. For the last two we tried hard, but sometimes it’s just not possible
But I think once they are bigger, nursery perhaps, we will have more spare time, and thus can pursue those above.
For now though, we’ll just have to be patient – and enjoy our every moment together.


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03 January 2001 — 11.08

Yesterday morning around 2 pm, we found Sarah bleeding all over her face. Apparently, she managed to pull off her glove (smart girl) and then started scratching her itchy skin (she had a rather severe case of Eczema) freely (not good).
When we found her, she cant open her eyes because her own blood was all over it. Some area on her face simply doesnt have skin anymore, you can see its flesh exposed. There was blood on her clothes, blood on her bed, blood on her hairs. The horror.
We were completely shocked, unable to say anything for a moment. What we saw breaks our heart thoroughly – seeing your own baby covered in blood, and crying in pain…
Then we instantly drive to the first hospital that came to our mind – City Hospital. We didnt dare to clean her blood, we were too scared, she is so small it seems that she is so fragile.

Unfortunately, it didnt went very well. The doctor that received us wasnt very happy (why go here instead of children hospital) and he didnt even bothered to clean her blood/sterilise her wounds. I asked him but he said clean it yourself after I returned to my home (!). Im still very angry when I think about it. What a joke, even the under-funded Indonesian hospitals are still better compared to this!
(actually in Indonesia in case like this we can always come to our family doctors home and wake him up – voila, instant treatment. hows that for a service eh!)
Granted he may not be the expert of Eczema – but for God sake; cant you see that tiny baby covered in blood, isnt that a pity sight? Is it so hard just to tell a nurse to “get betadine and some cotton” ?

This occasion makes me think really hard – if public service continues to be such a disappointment, I really cant afford to just stand and see my family suffers. Gotta find a better alternative or else.

On a happier side, Sarah is recovering, much better than our expectation. We put a strong lotion given by her GP and E45 to moisturise her skin. I cant believe what I saw when I went to work this morning, shes already laughing joyfully, her skin now started to become white and smooth again.

Office: Not much to do in the office, might wont until next week with people still in their holiday. We will see.


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