Cuti sekolah...

Macam biasalah...bila cuti sekolah...budak-budaklah pun sibuklah nak pergi jalan-jalan. So, Umi dan ayah pun mulalah carikan tempat nak bagi anak-anak seronok....
Started with Bukit Merah...then spent few hours and night safari kat Zoo Taiping...followed by a one night trip at Cameron Highland. The traffic was quite ok at Cameron Highland due to many people have gone back home at the end of the school holiday.
It was a quite tight journey started from early morning of 12 June and reached home at about 6.00 p.m on 14 June 2009. It was very tiring but the excitement and great times spent with the family overshadowed all that. Alhamdulillah...everyone was very happy and enjoyed the short vacation so much...looking forward for the next one!

Feeling so low...

Feeling so low in my life in the last few days until today. Don't know how long it will last this time around and it looks like that I don't want the feeling to stop. Sometime, it might be better if I just let my feeling to take its space in me...it came uninvited and let it go by itself. I don't feel like to go against it.
I'm not the one who likes to entertain this type of negative feelings to have any sort of control in my day or any part of my life but this time I feel very much different.
Knowing this will give some impact in everything else that I do...I don't feel having the strength to fight my frustration, anger and all kind of similar feelings at this moment.
Why???? I don't have the courage to say it even to myself but deep in me...I feel it so much! It make me feel useless and all what I did have no meaning at all. Feeling myself so bad although I know that I am not too good anyway. I'm just a normal person, a man, a husband, a father, a son and a father with a normal desire to do the best in his life.
what the hell I'm writing here?!!!
Yeahhhh! My brain is in a mess now...hope?!!! better let it be like this for a while...I just want to let the natural "evil" feeling enjoying its moment now...who will pay?!!! I believe people deserve what they deserve...So do I!

"Giving Back"....

Date: 9 May 2009, Saturday
Venue: Dewan Melur, Tekam Plantation Resort, Jerantut, Pahang
Program: Kursus Pemantapan Komunikasi Korporat untuk AJK Pelaksanaan Pesta Konvokesyen ke-37, UKM
Organized by: Bahagian Pengembangan Pelajar , UKM
Slots: 9.30 a.m-11.30 a.m - Komunikasi Korporat
11.45-1.00 p.m - Teknik Pemasaran Projek





It was another enjoyable moment for me over the weekend. Actually I was quiet tired after a long journey back from Kulim Kedah. I spent the whole night on Thursday, 7 May 2009 preparing the presentaion slides for the event. I already have the materials available since the event was scheduled initially on April but postponed to 9 May 2009 at the new venue. I just need to prepare the MS Power Point Presentation.

This time around, my wife and kids were able to joined me since it was on weekend. I guess they had a great time as well the resort-type accommodation provided is completed with other facilities such as swimming pool for children.

The program was organized by the Student Development Divisioon of UKM and I was invited to give talks for two 2-hour slots. Topics given were corporate communication and project marketing. The topic sound so huge for me who is not really in that fields as my career but they just need inputs from students' perspective when they want to market their projects. This particular group is for the 37th UKM's Convocation which is an annual event. Am I the right person for that?..I believe I am due to my extensive hands on experiences in "mega" projects such as UKM's Career Day and National Workshops for Secondary School Students at UKM when I was a student and my working years selling engineering services as a consultant.

I was recommended to UKM for this event by one of my old friends who works in UKM and worked together with me when we were students.

To be honest, coming back to UKM or to meet up with people from UKM has been always interesting to me. Coming back to share my thoughts, experiences and knowledge has made my returns more meaningful to me. It so so exciting to see the students are eager to learn from what I share with them everytime I am involved in this kind of sessions.
As I always said to myself and my wife....may be this one of many ways where I can do good things to others and the same time "giving back" to an institution where I've gained so much as a person.














It is very difficult how to explain why I keep continue doing this especially when I am in a very tight schedule with my works and commitment with my family. I have never seen that as burdens to me and keep doing it has given me so much personal satisfaction and new experiences. One of the best thing can happen is I can enhance my personal skills especially in public speaking and presentation which will definitely giving positive impacts in my actual works.
Looking at their eyes listening and participating throughout my presentation will remain as another sweet memories when I shared many things with them.
I had a great time over there and I hope my audience has managed to learn and gain some good things from my presentation

I wish I can do this again and keep my desire burning to keep "giving back" to the people especially in UKM like the participants in this program. It has been my believe that I can only get more knowledge when I share my knowledge with others no matter who they are.

I wish them all the best in their project and also in their life as students.

On the other side...my family is enjoying their time at the resort. My kids were having so much fun especially at the swimming pool of the resort. I guess everyone having a good time over the weekend...see it and you'll believe it!


At least another quality time I managed to spend with them and in the same time doing what I like to do.

Some of my friends did tell me that I should start to make it more commercial since I have the capability to present my knowledge and experiences which I am good at...it means it will start to become services that I can offer at reasonable fees....yes they are right and I should consider that...may be later in the future as long as I can continue doing it ...with satisfaction that I can feel in me.

Being a father

Lunch hour...

tak selera sangat nak makan hari ni.

Just thinking about my kids...

rasa macam cepat je masa berlalu..anak sulung aku dah pun 10 tahun umur dia. Then adik dia dah pun 9 tahun and 4 tahun. Physically, the first two dah pun hampir sama tinggi dengan wife aku.

Perkara-perkara yang aku nampak diorang share in common are ...they are very energetic, active and talkative. Wife aku cakap semuanya ikut macam aku...takleh nak duduk diam. After all...Umi diorang pun cikgu..banyak cakap jugak kan.

So, tak kisahlah pasal tu.

Ada one time dulu aku sembang dengan Boss lama aku...cerita pasal anak-anak le..anak-anak dia dah besar dan masa tu aku hanya ada satu baby...

aku pernah cakap yang aku risau bila tengok macam-macam hal atau problem yang jadi bila budak-budak dah besar..macam mana agaknya kita nak ensure diorang behave nicely and in the same time they can survive dalam dunia yang makin mencabar masa zaman diorang nanti...

Aku dengar Boss aku tu jawab simple je..(anak dia ramai and teenager masa tu).

Di kata, apa nak risau sangat pasal tu Zaini...you rasa your parent tau ke yang you akan jadi mcm diri you sekarang..dengan kerja sekarang ni..kereta apa yang you drive dan rumah apa yg you duduk?

Aku jawab mestilah tak. Then dia sambung..apa yang diorang buat?

Then aku jawab..diorang besarkan saya dan kasi saya education.

Then quickly dia jawab balik. So, you do the same thinglah.

Teach your children good values as a Muslim and give them enough education for them to drive their own life. Another one...show them a good examples all the time as a parent. Takkan you nak fikirkan cara diorang nak hidup sampai you mati...later they have to be on their own and lead their own future. You can never guarantee anything for them no matter how hard you try. You fikirlah Zaini

Aku rasa kata-kata boss aku tu masuk dalam kepala aku sampai sekarang. Lepas sembang dengan dia tu..aku teringat balik macam mana parent aku sampai sanggup berhabis nak hantar aku belajar. Dalam banyak hal, cara ayah aku berusaha nak pastikan aku selesai belajar selalu buatkan aku rasa hormat yang teramat sangat pada dia sampai sekarang.

From that time onwards...aku dapatlah sikit panduan macam mana aku nak didik anak-anak aku. Ada banyak elemen yang ayah aku gunakan dulu, aku yakin aku boleh gunakan jugak pada anak-anak aku...

Anak-anak aku pun makin besar...dan aku pun kena makin banyak belajar tentang ilmu sebagai ayah and more alert about how they progress in their life. Banyak perkara yang selalu aku share dengan wife as both of us need to be alert all the time. I keep saying to my wife...if someone has to be a role model to our children, let us be the one. At least, we can control ourself on how we should behave in front of our children and do something to keep them inspired to achieve something better than us.

Another important knowledge that I learned from my readings and what I heard is...successful children can only come from a happy family and for me...a happy family is much more depending on how I lead and manage my family and my marriage.

Alhamdulillah dengan apa yang ada sekarang and I can only keep working on it to make things better...keeping my children happier having me as a father...

Hoping my children would be able to lead better life for themselves when they have to be on their own....

So, Thank you En. Md Noor...I won't forget your advice

My dreams from now

Career

I have strong feeling that I am at the stage and a place that I wanna be years ago.

Being in organization where I can serve the people and doing what I would love to do...surely in the environment that I can feel a high degree of satisfaction and security.

Now is the time for to to reach as high as possible in my career...may be it would be here..may somewhere else...

Only time will tell but I just need to keep the momentum going.

No place is a perfect place to work and no place I can get all that I wanted anyway. The only thing I need to do is to get as much as possible wherever I go.

I happy here now although many things happened and not in my favour...I always believe that I'm doing my best to get it there.

Sometime the final output is not within my say but what matters to me is my contribution towards the output.

I'm very positive about my own future of my career...

Keeping my integrity and fully committed to my responsibilities is the way forward and will remain as my way to move on. So far that way has been rewarding to me and I just wanna be myself in that sense.

Position?!!! not really my prime concern now....Now I just want to enjoy my works, build more strengths and acquire more knowledge in the area of my interest. After another 5 years...it would be better time for me to go after a position to rewards the value that I will bring into my organization.

In the economic crisis....

Much has been talked about everywhere and the most scary one that I heard and read is...
this time around it would more worse than the one that happened in 1997 due to the devaluation Malaysian currency


Hard to predict what will can expect for tomorrow...sad to hear friends and other to deal with compulsory leaves, salary cut and also being retrenched.
I can feel it like everyone else...value of the money that I earned every month is getting less as days passed. The only good thing is I'm still employed and earn my pay on time every month..simply because I'm working with the government. That make me feel so grateful and relief...Alhamdulillah. Knowing the fear and worry to deal with the tough time when I entered the job market in 1997, being here today only require me to keep being grateful and be more cautious on how I spend my income now with all the commitment on my shoulders.At least I don't have to worry to pay all my monthly commitment such as loan repayments, bills and etc.

There were and there will be times where situations can be felt much more difficult and mentally I need to prepare myself and my family to deal with that. After all, as a husband I need to lead them to go through all that without cracking under the pressure. Alhamdullillah, the closest person to me in my life seems to be to one who can walk together with me. The bottom line is, our way of life prepared us naturally to face challenges like this. We have not been in any difficult moment yet due to the current economic crisis facing by Malaysians.

But...no one knows in the future...no one can say when this crisis will be over.
Sad to say some friends and people that I know started to be affected very badly...
When I went to a Giant Hypermarket last weekend...it was not as crowded as it used to be especially at the end of the month when people just received their salary.
Cash toll booth at the highways having longer Q now since less people using Touch and Go. Of course, prepaid item is not a best option now where every cent counts to keep ourselves floating.

I just need to keep everything manageable now...
I managed to close one credit card account last month...the only one I have..kept at the office.
Explained to my kids and discussed with wife on expenditure controls that we need to maintain.May be my kids won't understand the whole thing but at least they know that everyone has to play their part for not asking anything unncessary...


So, life goes on and hoping for better and brighter tomorrow...and work for more...
this is a challenging time and everyone feeling it. It is just a matter how we deal with it...each of us!

Unexpected things in life

No one knows what is their future. The only thing that can be done is to work out on something today with the hope it will give us better life tomorrow.
In life..nothing is guaranteed other than dying...and it is just a matter of time on how, when and where we die.

Senang je cakap kan but all of us know that life is so much more complicated than how we say and see it. Everything and everyone has their own stories that flowing with their life.

Aku sendiri pun...banyak yang berubah dan banyak perkara yng berlaku pada aku dan hidup aku ni sama jugak macam orang-orang lain tapi aku percaya satu perkara...

Siapa kita pada hari ini ialah bergantung apa yang kita buat semalam...atau apa yang berlaku pada diri kita semalam. So, kalau kita menyesal apa-apa hari ini...kita patut tengok balik apa yang kita buat dan apa yang berlaku sebelum tu. From there, we need to pick all those pieces and how we can use them as a basis of our next action.

I always prefer to look everything that happen from the positive side of it because many people told me and from my readings...anything that happened us is something that we are capable of dealing with and that is why Allah made that happened to us.

Allah knows what He is doing and why He is doing it ...not for me to waste my time to finds answers to that.

When dealing with something unthinkable or unexpected...it' s all about what we can do at our very best...finding the ways and means rather than findings why should or shouldn't that happen to us.

When I was offered a place in a boarding school...I was left clueless but I did my best to fit myself there. Then I managed to climb another level of my life.
When I took engineering, I was not sure if that would be the best for my career later but I just tried to gain as much as possible at campus and that brought me to the area where I am now after graduated from UKM.
When I wanted to get married, I was not sure if I can make my wife totally happy or not but I promised to myself that I would do whatever it takes to be a good husband and that is exactly what I 've been doing until today.
After all all of us could not be perfect but nothing wrong or it is not too ambitious for us to work towards perfection because the bottom line is...
how much we enjoy each part and stage of our life.

I remember watching a talk show on Astro Awani last week when Dato's Salleh Majid , a former chief at BSKL was asked by someone from the floor on who is his role model and why...
He said his role model is suppose to be a role model for everyone and his role model is Nabi Muhammad S.A.W. He added, he knows that it is impossible for him to be at the same level with our Prophet but he can never be wrong by taking Rasulullah S.A.W as a role model. Simply because it has been proven by researches and facts that Rasulullah is the the best leader, strategist, economist and many more...

So, coming back to the point...
many unexcpected things especially the one that very unpleasant/difficult/tough/challenging/disastrous to us will happen all the time...
and the best way to deal with it is by sticking to something which is absolutely right although the outcomes may be not in our favour but at least...we are doing the right things.
Sometime in life, the right thing is not always what we thing is right or perceived to be right!

People can judge but after all..they are entitled for that and so do us! To be safe enough...doing what is Allah told us is right can guarantee us many things which most of them we can't even see and enjoy it "here" now...

Just something popped up in me...
fell better to express it to myself...