Single mothers II

She is 43, with 8 children under her arm, she lives on the food that is provided by her brother who is a farmer and taking care of both their old parents. Her husband just passed away a few months ago when she was carrying her eight child. She was ashamed, no where to turn to.

She was at the door step when I was not really having a gd day. I was busy and tired working since morning and the most that I wanted, was a lil rest about half an hour before punching the card to go home. Again, she was there waiting. I remembered the receptionist telling me she wanted to see me. So, quickly I sent her in the office.

She was there sitting, quiet. She need not to say a word. Though I could not remember her look, but from the way she was saying to the receptionist that she was having a personal problem and that I offered to see her whenever she needed anything, she came back this time, holding her 2-week-old baby in her arm. Quickly I turned open the page, and recalled her name.

"You have not heard from the welfare dept?" I probed. "No".

I grabbed the phone nearby and started making calls, to anyone possible who knows what's going on with her application but to no avail. It's 4.30pm and people were not around. I was exhausted. I dunno what to say. Looking at her baby, I know, they need to eat. The very basic thing. The husband did not leave anything behind. "I don't know what happened to your application but I assure you that I will try to follow-up for you. Please drop by time to time or inform the staff so that I would remember to push them again and again". She was point blank.

I realize my limit. There are so many out there who are like her. A few days ago, CYT came and asked if her application was approved. I don't know. I don't work in the welfare dept. I just try to help channeling her to any friends possible I have to do her application. But there are just so many of them. I am beginning to feel a lil exhausted. I don't wanna stop, but I have to realize my limit.

If only there is a well organized system that we know where to get help in this country, I am sure things are easier. But the fact is NO, yes a big NO. Like I said, when Maureen's case was highlighted in the paper, she got what she wanted, even more than she could ask. What about these people who are not in the limelight? Still, I guess, some people are sleeping on their job. If only they could be more empathized with these single mothers plight, things will move faster. And that will remain IF.

It's not the time to blame whose fault to have so many kids, or whatever. What is done can not be undone. The young baby is innocent, like his other 7siblings, they don't choose to be born in a destitute family. It's time to do some damage control. Mother don't eat, kids don't get to eat and school, kids got sick due to poor nutrition, social ills, bla bla bla. You can see the link.

I know how it feels when someone says, we'll need to wait a while more and see. Most of the time, it will merely be a piece of word.

Mrs. President

I spotted this lady a few days ago on one of the online news. That smile was captivating. Her height and posture definitely an example of elegance. How courageous and confident one could be. At least that's what I thought of her.

I don't really know her. I just look at her pictures here and there since her husband was elected as the first black American president few years back. Though there was a huge coverage on the Mr.President, I couldn't stop noticing that charismatic figure standing behind him, all the time, at least that was what I thought.


She is Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, the current reigning First Lady of the United States of America. Some facts about Michelle Obama, she was born on Jan 17, 1964. She is the third First Lady with a post graduate degree, following Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush. She met Barack Obama when they were among the few African Americans who worked at the Law firm, and she was assigned to mentor him as a summer associate.

According to the couple’s 2006 income tax return, her salary was $273,618 from the University of Chicago Hospitals, while her husband had a salary of $157,082 from the United States Senate. The total Obama income, however, was $991,296, which included $51,200 she earned as a member of the board of directors of TreeHouse Foods, and investments and royalties from his books.

Besides all these glams and publicities, she is not shied away from criticisms as well. From being labelled as an angry black woman, to making some controvesial statements, she is still learning to cope with the new position she's holding. The First lady, the wife, and the mother of two daughters, her life has just become more and more challenging. Her fashion sense is also one thing that I admire.

Again, I don't really know her. Reading about her, neither bring me closer to understand her nor knowing her. I have no special reason to write about her but her smile with the kids certainly works for me. Hehe...

Please don't call me uncle, I am the big bro!

The week long absence proved to be a very busy week. Come to the end of the week, I have almost forgotten what's actually happened the whole week. Yesterday while rushing to two different venues for different events, I stopped by the office to catch a quick chat with the senior staff and to find out how's the office going on. I could hardly remember what happened on Thursday when they asked me how was the talk going on, on that day itself. I was simply tired, the mind was only focusing on the coming events rather than thinking back.

The stalker got what she wanted when she turned up in the office. She was reluctantly to leave until she got to see me even though the senior staff had insisted that I welcomed no guests that time because I was very busy, a plot that I made with the senior staff to get rid off her. But it was a futile attempt, she insisted and not to budge an inch off. Even though we settled earlier that I would send someone to give the talk, she came around again compelling me to go.

Certainly I was not impressed with the move but I just didn't want to create any scene, and would wish to end the whole ordeal by just GIVING IN to the stalker. I spoke to the superior in the morning, and he wasn't keen on what she was doing but I convinced him to let everything done as soon as possible as I couldn't stand the persistence of 'sms'es and calls from this stalker.

The last thing I would do was to report it to the police for harassment but again, people would start laughing, as it is now, the whole office knew about this incident, and everyone has non-stop teasing me. 'You know, she's really pretty, what a waste', said the staff. And the ever timid assistant even dared to make a lil joke out of it in front of me, I could only put up a fake lil smile and told her, 'Have you finished your work?'

The week went so fast that I have no time to check on the damage done on that day. Well, the talk was uneventful and I was satisfied that everything went well. Yesterday itself, I had two events going on in two different towns, that explains why the schedule was so tight. We lost our way when the driver had no idea where we were going at the very last minute in the morning. I had to make some emergency calls to the organizer and voila, we were 1 hour late. The event had to be delayed until my arrival in the morning.

It felt like a lil YB (yang berhormat-la), I was the honoured guest at the event. Launching the ceremony at the district level and I had to give my officiating talk. Then mingling with the people, bla bla bla... yes, just like so PR-ing. The weather was rather warm and hot.

Then we had to rush back to another town for a youth talk. It's a youth program organized by one of the substations. The jam was horrendous and I fell asleep during the journey until an hour later, I was awoken by the driver, and I had to go home to change to more casual wear. After some refreshments, we headed down to the youth talk event.

The thing about being with the youths is that, I felt as if I was like a big brother. In people's eyes, I am always the big brother. In fact, I am the youngest in the family. Nobody would have guessed that coz I played the big bro card very well. Since young, people looked up to me. Having said that, I actually at times yearn to be a lil brother, having someone to talk to and get advice. We started off by breaking the ice. Then after a lil talk from me, we went into some discussions. The youngest in the crowd being 12 years old, and the oldest was 19. It was quite a large crowd, around I would say 30? These kids are mainly from the underprivileged society.

We shared about the experiences of being youth and how to cope with it. I really hoped this lil pet project of ours would see beyond skin colours, genders or any discrimination of such. I realize the youths are like a piece of plain cloth. They see no colour. But they will turn into a colourful fabric if nurtured correctly. Otherwise, they'll be a rotten cloth of unwanted material. We can't afford to lose anymore of our coming generation into such an uncaring society which filled with lots of hatred to each other.


Greed and power has cost too much to our country. To talk about the current situation of the country would take more than a day, and a pretty huge sigh. I think I better save my breath. Only those who are blind would not see it through. When I looked at these kids, I feel so peaceful in lieu of the hatred world outside. I see one human race rather than races defined by the roots. So, my final say of that day was, "please don't call me uncle, I am your big bro".

It's a harassment!

Kena (Got) harassed again this morning! Remember the lady I was speaking the previous entry? Yes, it's her again. Received her sms this morning pushing for the talk. It didn't bother me as much until she tried calling me for 8 times, non-stop, somemore on my handset. Then she called up the office looking for me. I knew her trick too well. Elly, the assistant was there picking up the phone after they passed it into the room. I just sensed that she was gonna call the office. So, I warned Elly if anyone besides the staff, just say I wasn't free.

So, Elly picked up the phone, and with a loud voice, she looked at me, "Oh, it's Ms.Sul". With a quick stance, I signed to her, No No.... then she went, "but he's not available at the moment", "oh, he went for a procedure", and "ok, ok, I'd got the number down, shall let him know, ta...". Ahahaha, it was so funny coz the client was right in front of us and she put up a shy grin. Ouch!

Elly was forever blur, but she would not dare to ask what was going on except that she felt that someone was stalking me, ahaha... So, I spoke to the senior staff, Mdm Dah to take charge of the whole deal. Later the colleague called up again and this time, he apologized for the whole event (that the talk didn't materialized). But it's not me who said she was having a problem, it's the people from her office.

Hence, I wonder, if harassing a guy is as wrong as harassing a lady.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed

It's a quiet weekend. Besides going for dinner, I found myself lazying and sleeping alot. Maybe the body is trying to tell me that it's getting exhausted from the daily work. Yes, I do agree at times. Let's share what had happened for the past one week.

Work, badminton, work, traveling, work, badminton, work and a silly incident. That silly incident happened on a Friday when I was invited to give a talk at an institution nearby for a campaign. To my surprise, the person invited me has a lil mental problem, not that I created this story but I was told by her superior when I turned up at their institution on Friday and things went haywire. In the end, I didn't give the speech and it was a time wasting experience. Full stop.

In regards to the above mentioned title, Now life has killed the dream I dreamed, (an excerpt from the lyric I dreamed a dream), I find so much in connection to this simple phrase. This early morning when I started looking at the news online, I found this little article. click. We have been dreaming since little kid of what we wanted to become one day. I find it so absurd that these days, with the existing silly system, we are actually not progressing and expanding as we hoped for. I could say that even as for me, I had taken a u-turn in my profession and heading to a different kind of field. The very simple system that keeps everything running basically has killed the passion out of many people.

Again, I remember the first theatrical stage that I attended to, many years back was Les Miserable, in London. It was during my backpacking days that I found the joy and freedom that I'd always crave for. One of the songs later re-emerged, pulled off by Susan Boyle who was then I presumed the second Pott. (Pott was the first amazing talent and won the Britain's Has Talent show). Well, Boyle did well and head to stardom. Now, we find another new Boyle version, not very far, but our very own asian version, Lin Yu-chun.

His version of I will always love you, definitely has attracted lots of attention world wide, up to north America. I had even looked at one of his interviews with the media. At one point he almost broke down speaking of his ordeal up to this stage. He was speaking of how now life has killed the dream he dreamed. I guess it's an almost attempt, but he survived. Kudos!

Are we ready to CARE?

The sky has been very generous today despite giving out few drops of rain this very late evening. It was so warm, one could really understand that the rain is actually a teaser and not the changing of monsoon. It was said that the warm and dry weather will persist till somewhere in June. So folks, make sure the air cond is still working.

It was a holiday on Friday here. I had some time to look at the news before beginning my day. Something had caught my eyes on the paper and yes, again the eyes rolled up like nobody's business. I mean, it's a total nuisance. I know, i know. We have been reading so much nonsense nowadays that we don't know what's for real and what's not.

Well, if you might let me highlight some points over this article, Maureen finally gets a home. Yea, kudos, finally being a single parent, Maureen gets a home. On top of that her son is offered KWAPM (Fund for the poor students) and his education will be taken care off. Besides, there was a pour of donations coming from as far as the USA. Wow, what a generous society we have!!! (rolling eyes sideways)

Ok, the reality is this. There are so many other single parents like Maureen living across the country. Unlike Maureen, they didn't get as much publicity. Well, before attention was shone towards Maureen's path, she was nobody and there wasn't anyone who care to even look at her plight. And now, suddenly she was treated as if she was the only destitute single parent in this whole country. No, don't get me wrong, I am not saying anything wrong about extending aids to Maureen. But it feels so ironic.

It's always the same stuff. When there's a publicity, people start to pay so much concern. In fact, if there was something like 'Fund for the poor students', or welfare for single parents, why did Maureen cry foul in the first place before getting all these attentions. Certainly some quarters are sleeping on their work. Or are those documents and applications for the funds sitting on the dusty wooden chair or are they simply kept in a locked drawers and be looked into only when there are highlights from the media or around the general elections period?

I had a chat with a senior staff on Thursday after everyone knew that I worked late on Wednesday at another town because there were simply too many clients to be seen. They were sympathetic towards me which I quickly snapped on them. It's the clients that they should be paying sympathy. Because of the poor system, people had to wait for such a long queue. Fine, unavoidable circumstance if there were so many clients, but please find a more permanent solution. She was more afraid that the clients would make a complaint for the long waiting hours than to improve the situation. I find it rather unrealistic. I told her that I'd rather people to go and make a complaint. Otherwise, people who sit up there in the office would never realize the magnitude of the problems. These people only will look into such cases if there's a complaint. If we sit on the problems and no one make any noise, they also will play the deaf game.

The thing is, often at a time that the authority or the higher up people turn a deaf ear or pretend to close an eye on the real situation. Everyone knows there's a shortage of manpower everywhere. And to make ends meet, people from around the places are called in to relief. There's simply no proper distribution and organization. Look, there are parts where overflow of certain positions which are not needed in the sector. Yet, they are creating more and more administrative posts but fewer people to bring out the tasks. Imagine, generals are more than the soldiers. What's the use? Yea, pay them more, to do more orderings but none is gonna work.

I realized that I have diverted a lil from the main topic. What I wanted to highlight in Maureen's case is that, the proper authority should look into every of the single parent case and also identify who needed aids from the government. I believe there are still many more single parents like Maureen living with their children outside. We don't want another publicity to push the authority to work. They are paid to do their job, so help these people out and not sitting on the application itself. I was dealing with single mothers and I know how difficult it is for the applications to go around. Not mentioning the time and hope they(single mothers) put on the applications but finally find it futile and keep applying every year.

And society, yes, you people, ahahaha. I find it so ironic (pardon my sarcasm). Not that an issue was brought up in the media that the society started to pay concern. Wow, suddenly Maureen was flooded with aids. Why just Maureen and not others who are unfortunate enough to make it to the paper? If the society is really concern about single parents, find a proper channel to contribute the funds. I am so glad that Maureen directed the funds she received to others who needed more than her. Kudos. We need a responsible citizen and not any advantage seekers in the news. But again, I know-la. It's so difficult to find an org which supports these unfortunate souls coz I've even tried to look for deaf and mute org which is so scarce or simply downplayed by publicity. Guess we are not ready for a charitable society yet. Btw, the welfare society in my previous high school was sleeping as well, so obvious we are not nurturing "Charity begins at school (home)", a total let down from the Ed Ministry.

Let's be a REAL caring society.