Category: What da f***!!

I don’t know what it is about housemaids nowadays. The first housemaid my family has ever had, for as long as I can remember, was one middle-aged lady I called “Opah Susu”, as she was the one who made me my milk. She continued to work with the family until 1973 when we moved to PJ from Melaka.

After that, it was a string of sisters, Shamsiah and Kamariah, from Tanjung Besar in Pahang. I didn’t know what was really wrong with them. Shamsiah left after a few months, replaced in turn by her sister who also left after a year or so. Now that I’ve aged, do I know the real reason: they got pregnant by the neighbour’s gardener.

When my father was made the Inspector-General of Police, we had “batmen” so maids were actually Auxilliary Policewomen. So the discipline was there. When my father retired, it took four years to convince my ageing mother to have a maid. She got an Indonesian maid who proves herself to be an asset.

When I got married the first time around,my wife then was okay in her household management. Her attitude wasn’t. The second time I got married, I did all the housework as I married an extremely lazy woman, 4 years my senior in age. So I had to cook and tidy the house. Otherwise I’d fare better in a pig-sty.

With this wife, we’ve had 3 maids. The first was good with housework but her only snag was being caught spitting into my stepson’s milk bottle before feeding him. We gave her the boot. The second one, who is still here with us, is a lazy b*tch who sleeps and eats a lot. Always grumbling about having too much work around the house. So we got a third one to help her out. Quarrels ensued on who’s supposed to do what despite the division of duties; and th third one was also caught napping in my daughters’ room with the air-conditioner at full blast. Gave that one a boot, too,literally. So I’m stuck with this extremely lazy one whose butt is getting bigger than my tummy is by the day. The problem is my younger son and daughter are too attached to her.

Right just now I was at the end of my patience; I literally became the recruit instructor I was 14 years ago. I stood in one corner while I watched her clean the kitchen up (in the previous house, the kitchen was suitbale for breeding roaches and rats); and everytime she said she was done, I’d ask her if she was satisfied with her work, then if she said yes, I’d point to some little stain somewhere and asked her to remove it. All she has to do everyday is the housework and feed the two little ones; both she fail to do. Whenever my daughter cries in hunger, she’d make her sleep so she won’t have to feed her rice or something. So whenever the little one wakes up, the hunger would be just terrible. I don’t know what this maid does. My daughters and I tidy up our room respectively. I wash my clothes from time to time. I even do the gardening and tidying up the lawn. She can’t even wipe the dust off the table daily!

Now,if I kick this one out, what guarantee do I have that I will get someone better?

I saw this interesting piece of news in the New Straits Times today on how the malays are losing out for its failure to have a good command of the english language.

‘Shallow-minded’ champions
02 Dec 2006
June Ramli

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KUALA LUMPUR: Those who believe that learning English will make a person less Malay have been lambasted as “shallow minded”.

The criticism from Universiti Teknologi Mara vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah was aimed at those who had in the past voiced their opposition to public universities teaching more subjects in English.

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka was among those who had said that such a move would cause Bahasa Malaysia to lose its status as the country’s official language.

“The Bahasa Malaysia is our mother tongue and our language; it does not mean that if we speak English we are less Malay,” he told the New Straits Times.

Ibrahim said English was an important language in view of the globalisation taking place.

Last week, in the Dewan Rakyat, Member of Parliament for Kuala Krai Ismail Mohamed Said had asked Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed for the current statistics on the university’s unemployed graduates

Mustapa had said that the university had only a small number of unemployed graduates compared with other public universities because it produced top graduates who were marketable and spoke good English.

UiTM, which was set up to provide higher education for Bumiputera students, currently has an enrolment of 90,000 students in its campuses nationwide.

Formerly known as the Mara Institute of Technology (ITM), UiTM is an affirmative action university which comes directly under the government.

“Besides English, we also encourage our students to learn a third language like Mandarin or Japanese,” Ibrahim said.

He said the university produced about 30,000 graduates a year and they were trained to adapt to the job market.

“We only offer professional courses and most of these courses emphasise the need for English. For weak students who come from rural areas and do not have a good grasp of the language, we provide them with an intensive six-month course prior to their diploma and degree courses,” he said.

Ibrahim said this was only applicable to students who did not get a credit for English in their Matriculation or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination.

“This method has worked well for students who do not have an English-speaking background,” he said.

The university also encourages students to speak English by holding an English language month or week.

“During this period, if they are caught speaking in Malay, they would be fined,” he said, adding that most lectures were also conducted in English.

Ibrahim said the use of English in lessons had been part of the university’s system since ITM’s inception in 1956.

“Our programmes are mostly based on American programmes and that is why most of our students speak American English,” he added.

He said many UiTM graduates were holding top positions in the country as the university had emphasised on entrepreneurship skills as well.

Ibrahim said 80 per cent of the chief executive officers of plantation companies and 52 per cent of the total number of professional accountants in the country were UiTM graduates.

If the malays don’t buck-up, they will only have themselves to blame for their failures.

This link was given to me by Hotey Donkey. Some of the kids in there look like someone from your office, Hotey. Especially the one who walks his dogs at Ikano Power Center.

This is Ham, the first chimpanzee to go to space on behalf of NASA. He died at the age of 26. Ham was sent first because the Americans weren’t sure if the Mercury astronauts were ready for the first space ride; so Ham beat both Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard. In a way, it was a depressing and embarrassing blow for the Mercury Seven who thought one of them would be given the chance to ride on NASA’s first rocket, but no, it was a chimp who beat them to it. After all, NASA initially thought a chimp would be able to do all the jobs of an astronaut in a space capsule.

Ham the Chimp was all alone in that capsule, went up to space, and re-entered minutes later.

Malaysia’s astronaut will have nothing much to do. He won’t be in command of the 3-men Soyuz space capsule. he’ll be in there as a passenger: much like the space tourists Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, and Anousheh Ansari. If it was in one of NASA’s space shuttle, the Malaysian astronaut would be a Payload Specialist #7 – or in old malay ministerial post: Menteri Tak Berpelior, sorry, Menteri Tak Berportfolio (or by its more politically-correct term now: Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri.

But of course, it would be embarrassing having paid so much for the Sukhoi SU-30 MKKs, incorporating the cost of sending a Malaysian up into space to do nothing. So, according to BERNAMA, the first Malaysian astronaut will be playing gasing, batu seremban, make teh tarik, and to top the list of most difficult experiment: batik painting.

According to BERNAMA, “The astronaut will also paint a batik motif and make ‘teh tarik’ (‘pulled’ tea) which would be shared with his fellow astronauts,” said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry parliamentary secretary Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim.

Rohani, who was representing the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, was responding to a supplementary question from Datuk Dr Marcus Mojigoh (BN-Putatan) in the Dewan Rakyat, here Wednesday.

(‘Batu seremban’ is played by throwing one stone and sweeping another on the floor and then simultaneously catching the one thrown earlier.)

On Marcus’s original question, Rohani said a lot of scientists had forwarded their research proposal in space to the astronaut.

“The main objective of sending an astronaut into orbit is to carry out scientific experiments under microgravity – a situation alien to the earth. As such the National Aerospace Agency has opened doors to our scientists to show their mettle and capabilities through the National Astronaut Programme,” said Rohani.

So, now you know what experiments will be done up there next September when the Malaysian astronaut blasts off into space. My guess is if you can spin the gasing fast enough, it would orbit around the Malaysian astronaut and the experimental paraphernalia, creating a gravitational field, and none of the batu seremban pebbles, nor would the teh tarik behave like other things would in micro-gravity.

And do you know how much does it cost to send a kilogram of stuff up into space? US$23,486.00. Yes, that’s for a kilogram of stuff. I’m sure all the experiment paraphernalia the Malaysian astronaut is taking up will cost more than that.

In the midst of the MPK councillors’ saga, the MB of Selangor was shown to have a new youthful look.

Faizal’s gone, and so has Zakaria. One person who seems adamant on holding on is Mazlynoor – the guy who thinks he has done nothing wrong by the fact that his rumah haram (illegal dwelling) is the smallest amongst all.

I seem to remember somewhere during my military law enforcement days some 11 years ago that the recommended punishment for theft is 2 years whether it was for the theft of RM1, RM10, RM100, RM1000 and so on. It doesn’t matter as to what degree of crime that has been committed, it is the act that deserves the punishment.

Now the MB says that Mazlynoor is still eligible to be nominated as a local councillor as the latter is highly qualified; what puzzles me is that by flouting the very Act that the latter was supposed to uphold shows how he is NOT suitable to become a councillor, not at least in his lifetime. And to claim ignorance of the procedures set by the very same Act shows again how NOT SUITABLE he is to be retained in the next line up of local councillors anywhere.

And the MB too had shot himself in the foot when he blurted out to the press that there needs to be a proviso in the Local Government Act to enable community leaders, professionals etc to be nominated as coucillors; when indeed there is such a provision in Section 10 of the same Act.

Now that goes to show that the very top management of the state of Selangor has been running the state without a clue of what he can or cannot do.

It seems that while the MB has now look somewhat younger (he is a year my senior), he hasn’t gotten any wiser.