Letter To My Niece

Dearest Kin,
Now that you are married,  my greatest wish for you  is that you will be peaceful and happy in your married life. May you and Khairi be loving enough, wise enough, strong enough and patient enough with yourself and with each other in continuing your journey together as husband and wife. Your Wan Nyah is not married and probably do not know much about married life. However I have observed my few close friends' marriages long enough to notice that there are always challenges that need to be addressed. That is life. Being single too has its own set of challenges.

Do not be afraid about facing difficulties, should you have them. As long as you are determined to move forward there will be ways and means of overcoming them. You are a strong, smart, well educated lady. I am sure you will be resourceful and creative in facing them. You come from a strong, close-knit family. That is one plus point for you. I am very glad that your dad is doing well in his career and is able to give you and your siblings a much more stable family life financially. That is another plus point.

I am so glad too that many of my nephews and nieces have turned out great.  No, not because you have a great job or because you were brilliant in your studies. I am proud of those too, of course. Academic excellence will definitely help you find your footings in life later on. You and some of your cousins have done very well in your studies, much better than me or my siblings. But what is more important to me is what you all do with your lives,  how you handle your adversities, your tenacity to carry on and to persevere, your attitude, your outlook on life, you aspirations and your efforts and determination  to better yourselves.

Among my nephews and nieces, probably your Uncle Atan, you, your Along and your cousin Usop are closest to me. The others, I do not have the opportunity to know better. Probably to some of my 23 nephews and nieces, I am a weird auntie. I was not brought up by your Tok and your Atah. I seldom saw all of you before and when I did come and visit I was reserved and even aloof. My years with my adopted mother has left me with a lot baggages. Numerous issues used to depress me and there were times I felt like I was a shell, a hollow being with no insides whatsoever,  staggering around trying to decipher who I was, while feeling very isolated from my biological family.

Things are much better for me nowadays. Though in reality I am still struggling to regain my self esteem, I do accept myself better and I am able to savour some feelings of warmth and affection in my association with my nephews and nieces, especially the four of you mentioned above. Something that I find difficult to do with my siblings, which are your dad and your uncles. Inside of me, there is always this doubt, fear and embarrassment that may be my siblings don't like me because of my adopted mother quarrelsome personality. I even think that they might even despise me. That was part of my baggage.

The gang at the bridegroom's reception
in Pokok Sena, Kedah on
Dec 11, 2016

The couple with the bride's parents.
Pokok Sena,  Dec 11, 2016. 

From left: Yong, who is Kin's aunt on her mum
side,  Wan Nyah,  Khairi, Kin, Kin's mum and
Kin's dad. The little girl is Kin's niece Zara Azalea.
Pokok Sena Dec 11, 2016

Take good care of yourself and accept yourself completely and unconditionally. The introvert personality tend to rear its unique head here and there in our family. To me being an introvert has some very attractive traits even if we can easily be misunderstood by others. Realise that you have weaknesses but then you have strengths too. You in particular have quite a lot of strengths, I have noticed, one of which is that you are very independent. Something that can be very crucial when you are facing life stresses. Always be curious about the world around you. Take time to ponder about things. We live in a country in which the politicians and the clergies are increasingly demanding that the ordinary people just swallow whatever that are being pushed into our mouths without thinking. Read widely and expand your horizon. A person who reads a lot will not be easily swayed by others. Remember that, it is okay to be different.

So Selamat Pengantin Baru, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all the very best to you and Khairi. Love you.

Affectionately,

Wan Nyah

Riding The New Train Route

The much anticipated Sg. Buloh-Kajang MRT (also referred to as MRT1) started its Phase 1 operation yesterday, Dec. 16th. It consisted of 12 stations starting at Sg. Buloh and ending in Semantan. The stations are Sungai Buloh, Kampong Selamat, Kwasa Damansara, Kwasa Sentral, Kota Damansara, Surian, Mutiara Damansara, Bandar Utama, TTDI, Phileo Damansara, Pusat Bandar Damansara and Semantan. Let's hope this new transportation network can help alleviate the severe traffic congestion in the city and ordinary people can have another option to travel around Klang Valley, besides driving on their own. May be they can park their vehicles somewhere and ride the train partially on their way, to and from work. For five years I drove to work and I very much understand the stress and hassle of driving on some of Klang Valley roads. I think we have good roads but we have too many cars because the poor transportation system forces people to drive their cars. After the five years, I drove from home to the commuter train station, parked my car there and took the train to Shah Alam. I was lucky that my work place was in front of the Shah Alam commuter station, thanks to CIAST's early planners wise choice of location. The commuter train service was terrible during the period 3 or 4 years before I retired but is improving now.

Most of  the online maps are of poor resolutions,
so I snapped the image of the physical map
distributed by RapidKL staffs.

I had wanted to go to One Utama shopping centre and I thought I should try the new train. Parked my car at Port Klang Commuter Station and took the the commuter train to Subang Jaya. The interchange station between KTM Commuter Pelabuhan Kelang Line with the new MRT is only Sg. Buloh for the time being. That is too far away. For information, an interchange station is one where passengers do not need to exit the station building, in order to switch lines.  As commonly is the case, we need to to change for one line to another to effectively use the system. At Subang Jaya I changed to LRT Kelana Jaya Line heading towards Gombak and I got down 3 stations away at Lembah Subang station. From there, there is a feeder bus that will get you to Surian station on the Sg. Buloh-Kajang MRT. For one month, from Dec. 16th, the MRT and the feeder bus rides are free.

Spanking new, clean, bright
SURIAN station

Inside the new 4-coach train

From Surian I rode the train to Bandar Utama, two stations away.  There are feeder buses here too, to take you to One Utama. It is within walking distance actually. However, the road is busy with all manner of construction and it was a hot day so I took the feeder bus.

Festive air in One Utama, and
bright-coloured deco. A bit
too garish for me. 

Modest deco here

Since the ride is free, I took the MRT from Bandar Utama to Sg. Buloh on the way back. Scenic journey with urban landscape of PJ to industrial estate and rubber plantation near Sg. Buloh station.

Immediately after Bandar Utama station

Financial, commercial district of  PJ/Damansara

City dwellings around Damanasara

Another view from inside the MRT

Another view from inside the MRT

Rubber plantation near Sg. Buloh station

Wan Nyah inside the MRT going towards Sg. Buloh

From my experience, the LRTs are quite good in being punctual and having good frequency of service. Let's hope the MRT is also equally punctual and having good frequency as it is from the same company. KTM Commuter on the other hand still has lots and lots of room for improvement.
One thing I forgot to do while taking the ride is to note the ticket price. I still think it is still not quite convenient for me to go to One Utama taking the trains because I still need to take the feeder bus between Lembah Subang and Surian. Buses are notorious for being stuck in traffic jams. The route taken by the feeder bus goes around the busy parts of PJ and Damansara. It would be difficult to maintain punctuality when you are at the mercy of the road traffics. Once the interchange station Pasar Seni is completed then it would be a much better option for me.

The last image below is not of the MRT,  but of the KTM commuter train, which I took from Sg. Buloh to Pelabuhan Kelang yesterday evening.

View from the cracked window 
glass of the KTM train. It is quite 
common to find such windows 
on KTM commuter trains.

Getting A Cat Into The Carrier

On Saturday I will be travelling back to KK for my niece Syikin send-off to the bridegroom's side in Kedah. Since Monday and Tuesday will be public holidays for Selangor, I have already booked places for boarding for my furry kids at my regular vet.

Sending them for boarding is always a sentimental issue for me. A lot of the time, I would be crying, even if I would leave them there for only four or five days and this event is repeated many times in a year. I am just a weeper or a crybaby where my pets are concerned. In fact where animal welfare is concerned actually. I would have preferred to leave them at home and for someone to come and top-up the kibbles and change the water bowl. But people that I can rely on, stay far away from my place and I do not want to burden them with travelling so far to do that. If my neighbours are pet-friendly people then I would have just leave them at home with plenty of kibbles and plain water provided. They would have stale kibbles after a few days, but they will not be stressed out having to be caged at the boarding place. However some neighbours dislike cats and have already voiced out their displeasure at my Mickey sometimes jumping onto the top of their car or spraying onto the car tyres. I have already apologised to them about that. I tried to put myself in the shoe of a person who doesn't like cats and I have to agree may be I would get irritated too in such instances. Since then I feel uneasy about leaving my cats at home when I am not there, unless otherwise, I really can't help it.

Cats are smart animals. They study you and your routines with them. They sense your vibrations acutely. Calling to them too often before catching them would make them suspicious as you don't normally do that. Closing doors and all outlets suddenly too would easily make them bolted to the end of the block. Offering food too many times in a short period of time and they just walk off. Once I tried to catch Tam and somehow she slipped from my grip and sprinted away. Mickey and Comot got the hint and they both ran away too. For about 2-3 hours after that all three of them stayed away from the house. Watching from a distance, alert and ready to bolt in case Wan Nyah tries again. So today, Wan Nyah must act very normal. Not to pay any special attention, not to call them too often, not to offer treats at unusual time and not to overdo the cuddling.

Carriers for the two girls are out

The big boy watching Wan Nyah
taking out the carriers with suspicion

She is watching too

In 2016

2016 will be leaving us very soon. Many things happen in 2016. On a personal level, 2016 is the year I lost my dad. It was a little unexpected for me and my siblings. We were greatly expecting he would pull through the pneumonia attack. But dad lost the battle after about a week in hospital. Before that, in the middle of 2016, my nephew Along fell sick with some ailment. He lost so much weight that we were really worried about him. Luckily he is very much better now. He beat the infection quite fast and we were very very thankful about that. On another happy note, my niece Syikin got married this year. My niece Diana has a son and her brother Dasila has a second child a few months ago. All together I have 13 grandchildren. I am an Atah Nyah thirteen times over now.

My nephew Along. The canine is Lela,
who was rescued from an old lady who 
couldn't afford to keep her. Lela is one of
the four guard dogs at the chicken farm. She is  
about a year old, very adorable and very 
much loved by the family.

Kin's wedding souvenir

As citizens of this beautiful piece of land jutting out into the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea, we witness a lot of things happening in 2016. From things which are good and amazing, to things which are unbelievable, absurd, bizarre, and downright to things which are disgraceful, humiliating and causing extreme embarrassment.

A lot of people are losing their jobs in 2016. A few are people close to me as well. One nephew is unemployed since 2014 and is doing odd jobs here and there to support himself and his wife. I lost quite a number of classmates in my French class. A few were expatriates who lost their jobs in the oil and gas sector and have to return to their home countries. Other classmates simply stopped because of the financial constraint, The course fee is not really that much. However, when all things considered, people just couldn't afford some things, when their regular income is halved because another family member is unemployed or because the only breadwinner in the family is being retrenched.

The ringgit slid past 4.0 to the US dollar on Wednesday, Aug 12, 2016 for the first time in 17 years. As of today, Dec 8, 2016, 1USD equals RM4.43. There were and are still huge concerns over economic growth and political uncertainty stemming from a government financial scandal. The country's economy has been dogged for months by concerns that slumping oil prices will harm growth as an oil-exporting nation. According to one economist "Malaysia's vulnerability is heightened by deteriorating terms of trade, high debt, and a fragile fiscal position highly dependent on oil-related revenue," I do not know much about economy but that quote is definitely worrying to me. The carefree feeling of yesteryears is gone I think. Previously, there was confidence that as long as you were prepared to work hard, there would always be jobs for you in Malaysia and you would be able to survive. Four or five years before I retired, I was quite confident I could find some part-time jobs easily. Nowadays, even if there are openings for me, I do not have the heart to take it, as I know there are more deserving candidates.

Call me a pessimistic  or a cynic, I am welcoming 2017 with a lot of dread and apprehension.