Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

 

Ever heard of the saying “God works in mysterious ways”. Well, agree. But so does the brain? The gray matter, so it seems, works in ways sometimes we cannot understand at all. My cousin, Jamie (yes, it’s him again) emailed me this. Despite chasing after deadlines long gone, I decided that…what the heck, I need a break, anyway.

 

And it blew my mind! That’s why…don’t believe David Copperfield. If a simple ‘gif’ image can illustrate our ‘weak’ our mind is, then so can David Copperfield and the troops of masterminds behind each and every one of his tricks.

 

Check this one out. Click on picture to view large version

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one color, pink.

 

However. if you stare at the black "+" in the center,
the moving dot turns to green.

Now, concentrate on the black "+" in the center of the picture.
After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a green dot rotating.

It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see.

I know I’ve like disappeared from the face of the earth or something. I know, bad girl, bad girl. But I have not.

 

Am busy trying to concentrate on staying alive. Trying toggle between washing, cleaning, bathing, feeding, cooking, working, watching my favourite TVB series of all times, and STILL remember to breathe!

 

But I received an email from my cousin (Jamie) with the following and thought it was pretty funny.

 

Indeed, as you will see (if you have not seen this before), English is so damn easy!!!

Thanks, Jamie!!

***

 

Fill in the following blank with "Yes" or "No"

______ , I don't have a BRAIN.

First, read this. It’s an excerpt from Sure Signs you’re the mother of boys by Sharon O’Donnell. I am quite picky about who I like as a writer and for me, Sharon O’Donnell has this way of writing that either touches you or tickles you. Everything that she writes about parenting and being a mother is so true that it makes you want to cry!

 

Excerpts from: Sure Signs You’re the Mother of Boys

by Sharon O’Donnell

• you find Power Ranger parts under your sofa. Sometimes your vacuum cleaner finds them first.

• your weekend schedule includes more total hours of little league sports than it does sleep

• they think PMS is the new Play Station video game system

• you have to chase down the playful family dog to retrieve your son’s jock strap

• the most romantic movie you’ve watched in the last five years is DieHard II

• you have to arrange two weeks ahead of time to take a bubble bath – and then must lock the door and scream “I’m in the tub – ask Dad!” every three minutes.

I not only find Power Ranger parts under the sofa, I find it in my underwear drawer, in the fridge in the wok and many other unimaginable places. And I have not been able to find the time to sit down to plan the next five minutes….a bath? Out of the question!! The only bath I get these days is in the condo pool. And I don’t think they allow red wine there….

It’s been…what…6 days since I moved out of the safe confines of my in-laws’ home. Gone are the days where you sleep until there’s food on the table. Gone are the days where you surf the net until someone tells you it’s time to fetch the kids. Gone are the days of peacefully working behind the computer while the kids entertain themselves with other cousins.

 

I have spent 90% of the time in this new apartment washing one thing or another. It’s amazing! Every time I finish washing something, there’s something else to wash. The kids have this radar thing going too – when the floor is clean, their radar spots it and they run around in the clean area until it’s dirty again.

 

My fingers are coarse like sand paper and no amount of lotion is going to repair this!!! My back aches. My nails are chipped. I call out ‘Joshua’ and ‘Jared’ in my sleep. I’ve pissed off at least 6 clients because of this house moving thing that has taken FOREVER!!! And I almost poisoned the whole family with overnight ikan bilis (anchovies) broth left wrongly in the refrigerator instead of the freezer!

 

So far, everything’s really…..swell?

 

 

 

I am not a very superstitious person and sometimes can be quite aloof when it comes to things like stepping over cracks and under ladders….but still!

My book review for “The Star” on the book ‘It’s called a breakup because it’s broken” is published on FRIDAY the 13^th (hear the Twilight Zone song yet?)

So far, nothing untoward has happened to me today…yet...partly due to the fact I've been sleeping the whole day because of late night working on client’s website and is still kind of groggy right now. Touch wood, touch wood.

But sometimes I think the famous Friday the 13^th is all fiction and no fact. Why would it be bad luck day only on Friday the 13^th? Fear of Friday the 13^th has a scientific name, by the way, and it’s called paraskevidekatriaphobia. (I dare you to try to pronounce that!)

 

Points to ponder:-

• If Friday the 13^th is an unlucky day, the whole world will suffer at the same time and nobody will win lottery on this day.
• Friday the 13^th is really all fiction because it’s a complete national (International?) unfounded trepidation
• The stock market will crash on Friday the 13^th
• It’s all in the mind. Ever heard of THAT one? If you think Friday the 13^th is going to be a bad day…by golly, you’ll get nothing but bad luck all day. But if you snub your nose at the notion, you will have none of the ill fortune
• Nobody should go to work on Friday the 13^th because nothing will go right. The printer will not work, the coffee machine will explode, virus will penetrate the intranet, files will be corrupted, clients will leave, documents and legal agreements will be lost…etc
• Nobody gets married on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will ever give birth on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will go to the doctor or dentist on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will start a new job on Friday the 13^th, lest they get fired on the spot for no apparent reason.
• Nobody will buy insurance or shares on Friday the 13^th

 

Imagine, the world would have complete stopped spinning because…it’s black Friday.

I am a mess. No, not mess as in mess but messy as in messy. Ppphhhttt, as if THAT made sense but I loathe the idea of calling myself messy so I will settle for calling myself ‘organized in a messy way’.

There.

Since I am going to be moving out to my own place next week (my grandmother found the PERFECT lucky date to move, so, there’s really no escaping. Unless I like the feeling of having a knife in my rear end planted there by well-meaning elderly people in my family – BOTH sides), I thought I’d write a little about housework, mundane and pain-in-the-butt chores like picking up your own clothes, doing your own laundry, sweeping your own floor, mopping the damn floor, wiping and dusting tabletops and computer tops and TVs and….see, I get even get TIRED writing about it. Plus, I have this sinus problem that makes it impossible for me to sweep or dust anything without popping a few blood vessels in my nostrils.

I’ve used my sinus problem as an excuse quite successfully over this lifetime but I guess I will no longer have a choice when I move out without my maid in tow.

Yeah, I have a maid but we’re leaving the maid with my mother-in-law since I am younger, more energetic and supposedly more able than her. Sometimes I question this logic. She may be older but if you look at my mother-in-law, you’ll see that apart from creaking knees, she moves without much effort around the house. In fact, she runs faster than me! But since all the families congregate in my mother-in-law’s place (my current residence) everyday, it would make sense to leave the maid here instead of having to get another maid and contend with another full-blown ‘How can this maid be so dense not to understand what ‘’o-oi’ and ‘mum-mum’ mean?’ problem. They don’t teach maids our baby-language (which they should, by the way) as in mum-mum means eat, shee-shee means pee, mm-mm means big business in toilet, o-oi means sleep…etc.

I think housework is a stupid chore. Why can’t we live in organized clutter? I mean, isn’t it OK if we all know where things are and where the broom, the mouse, the speaker phone, the handphone charger and the fork and spoons are? Isn’t that enough already? Do we have to live in hotel-like environment in order to function? Isn’t it enough that we have clean clothes to wear, half-decent shoes to put over our feet, and a home that does not smell like the insides of an ashtray? If not, then let's all move to Hyatt Saujana or something.

I mean, let’s look at it this way…you wipe, mop, sweet, vacuum…and whatever else it is that you do to a home….tonight, you go to sleep in a this sterile environment feeling extremely proud of yourself and then you wake up in the morning and there’s dust everywhere. DUST, DUST, DUST!! It’s frustrating because you’ve worked so hard to keep the place clean and then all you get is a night sleep without enjoying the cleanliness at all! Why bother?

My table is the messiest place in any place that I live or work. In the bank I used to work, I heard the receptionist say to my client when he came to visit me, “There, see the table with four piles of files stacked up on the front of the table? That’s Marsha’s table” You can’t see me coming in from the door because the files form a sort of protective wall from public eye. Eh, I like it this way, ok? But my office mates laugh at me and my boss asked me if I had enough space to write anything when I pile everything on top of my table and I say, “Sure”. But in the end, they got me a special second table where I pile MORE files on top of it. The extra table did not help me clear the original table but instead, I built a longer wall of files!

It is ironic that when I was living with my parents, I shared a bedroom with my sister. Now, she’s someone who is totally opposite of me! I couldn’t care less and she cares about everything - sad to say, she’s my YOUNGER sister. I make a mess, she cleans up. She puts her toiletries in organized compartments, mine can be found under the toilet bowl. She organizes her perfumes and lotions in sections, mine can be found dumped inside my underwear drawer. In fact, she’s so meticulous that she used to iron my school uniform when we were in school!! She complained but my mom has given up asking me to do the task because I was never home, anyway.

Now that I am married, my HUSBAND has taken over the role. He is the kind of person who WANTS and NEEDS to stay in a hotel-like home and don’t want to lift a finger to do anything! Therefore, in my personal, opinion, he should just take his ass to Indonesia and find himself a bride there! Harumph! Accordingly, many Indonesian women know how to clean a home (any home) with their eyes closed.

And as I was saying, housework is tedious and mindless. Why do housework when you know that everything is going to be messed up again – especially if you have kids? You put their toys back into their organized toy boxes with special labels, and the next minute they are everywhere again. Why bother folding the blankets and comforters when you know they’re going to be used again tonight? Why bother mopping when you know one of the kids are going to spill their VITAGENS on the floor again?

But even if my own personal space is cluttered, I have to keep the rest of the place clean and as organized as I possibly can. In other words, I will clean every other spaces that affects others. When it comes to my own space, leave it alone! I like the organized mess that I am living in right now.

Written in jest, of course. Sometimes, I DO wish someone would clean my mess up for me......any takers?

House cleaning tips

 

House-cleaning schedule (there’s a SCHEDULE??)

 

Springcleaning

 

Getting organized

 

Cleaning up after pets (Urgh!)

 

Marsha
www.marshamaung.com

Here we go again…another new year, another beginning….a whole new barrage of resolutions and hopes and wishful thinkings. Of course, I am only saying this because I have been resolutely making resolutions for the last 15 years and only one time hitting one target. But I continue making these resolutions because it gives me hope and hope that some day, I will hit more than just one of those darn hard-to-hit targets.

New Home. My own home
I made this resolution consistently over the past 6 years and only this year, it’s realized. I am finally moving out into my new home. although the circumstances under which the new home was obtained (nothing illegal, I can’t very well STEAL a condo from someone, can I?) is less than ideal, it’s still my new home. a home for the kids. My own place.

Quit smoking.
Yes I smoke. Horrible, isn’t it? After all those years of making this resolution, I am still here…making this resolution. So, in year 2006, I WILL frigging stop smoking. I managed to bring the number of ciggies I smoke less now but heck, I just wish that one fine morning, I would wake up without needing my first morning cigarette. I wish that I didn’t have the need to have one last smoke before my head hits the pillows.

Encourage more people to work from home.
Now, this is only the second year that I am making this resolution. In 2005, about 6 of my friends or acquaintances have decided to trade in their office suits or a work at home career. I say HURRAY to them. This year, I hope I will be able to influence others, including my own sister, cousins and good friends, to work from home so that they can spend more time raising their own kids or be with their loved ones.

Finish 2 books
I have 2 books in the pipeline and I hope to finish them off this year and get them published.

Have more time
Funny, isn’t it? When you think of people working from home, you think they have all the time in the world. They don’t. they have less time, actually. So, this year, I want to have more time to myself and my kids instead of slogging it out 24 hours a day in front of the computer for my clients.

Continue gym. – very important to keep healthy body.
 
Be clothes horse – Yeah….right.

Visit my grandmother  - She’s not feeling too well. Dad says she doesn’t have a lot of time on her clock.

Build more partnerships so that I don’t have to do so many things at once!!!

Make more money – Of course! Duh!

I was browsing through a newspaper (The Star but don’t know what day) just about 5 minutes or so ago and couldn’t stop myself from doing a headslap. There’s something new for Malaysian viewers to watch and guess what….it’s ANOTHER reality show! My goodness, isn’t this an overload…and maybe overkill? Aren’t we all bored with the astronomous number of reality shows we have now.


This time, it’s a ‘football’ reality show. And then that’s not all – there’s another talent search show!


I am bored of watching reality shows and talent searches. I have to admit that I watched a lot of reality shows but when they started creating Millionaire-looking-for-wife reality shows and plastic surgery reality shows, I tuned out. This is WAY overboard. What, wouldn’t you start thinking whether the next type of reality shows would be along the lines of a woman or man testing out how good a person is in bed or something? It’s ridiculous and inconceivable!


And here we are….yet again, with another reality show with only one aim, to bring the advertisers in and lure the consumers to sit down and watch the show….oh, and the ads.

 

Marsha

www.marshamaung.com

www.allmomstuff.com

My husband and his family members have been staying here, the house that we’re currently residing in, for decades! Decades! And when they bought the house, this place is a budding city with promises of being one of the most developed areas in our State. True enough, it has become so.

This area (I shall name it MyCity) is now one of the best place to raise a family and at every corner, there’s either a supermarket or a convenience store. There’s a popular mall here that people from every other places in Kuala Lumpur come to and sometimes, it might even seem as though the world is here. It’s a torture, sometimes, but I am proud to be a part of MyCity and have decided that this is where I want to raise my kids. This is going to be my city, my home town. I love it.

But there is a dark side. Because of the growth that is spreading throughout MyCity, illegal workers also want a piece of the pie and the worst thing is that they have a settlement over here right in front of MyHouse (the house that I am currently living in, my husband’s family’s home).

A place that used to be the perfect place to raise a family, in the past decade, has turned into Living Hell! In front of my house, there’s a settlement or kampong whereby lots of foreign workers or illegal workers come to set up their base. Their little kampong houses are sometimes even bigger than ours because they get their materials cheap, no need to pay licenses and labor…they build their own, don’t they? Anyway, as the years go on, I have seen how they have progressed from building single story, one-room wooden houses to the now three-storey brick houses with ‘hostels’ on the ground floor.

Illegals who come here without visa or permit will come to this little kampong and get a place to stay in the ‘hostels’ because the owner of the house likes helping his own kind. I understand that but this makes our place very dangerous to stay in.

There are illegals walking around in front of our houses all the time. Over the past 7 years I have been staying here, we’ve lost countless items. I have lost 5 pairs of shoes to illegals who climb over our gates and take our brand new shoes. Oh, they’re smart enough to leave the old ones behind. My kids have lost 3 pairs of shoes…Joshua – 2 and Jared – 1. My husband lost 2 pairs and I can’t remember the pairs of shoes others have lost – my father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. One time, we caught an illegal (his wife waiting outside) taking out ladder from our yard! My maid screamed and he ran! But we know how he looks like now.

And then we’ve lost a bicycle. Since we have an automatic gate, I applaud them because it couldn’t have been easy to haul a bicycle (an old one with those silly-looking handlebars and a basket to boot) up the gate and pass it on to the other person outside the gate. We’ve lost a light bulb too, only recently. In its place, we found an old pajama which the robber must have used to turn the light bulb with because of the rain. Or maybe they decided to strip in the middle of the robbery, who knows what they’re thinking. Maybe stealing is kinky!!??

Oh, and we’ve lost tools like hammers and stuff and my husband got his car stolen about one and a half years ago too! My husband spent the one whole month of carlessness swearing. The inconvenience.

When my husband and his siblings were young, this house was broken into. My brother-in-law was awakened and pushed into my sister-in-law’s room and thank goodness my sister-in-law acted quickly. She had a large, huge (it’s MASSIVE I am telling you) baseball bat (not even a baseball bat because it’s too huge) that she used to knock the lights out of the intruder. He ran screaming…and my father-in-law (I think) ran screaming after him. But he was one of those ‘orang minyak’ (men who put oil all over their bodies so that they are not so easily caught) so, we didn’t catch the guy. I think there was an accomplice. Can’t be too sure.

And my neighbor moved away some time back, about a year ago, because there was an intruder who scared the living daylights out of her. The husband was at home with the kids and the wife just came home. She opened the gate and walked into the house with her handbag. A man came in from behind her, used a helmet to knock her right in front of her door and tried to pull the handbag away from her. She hung on and screamed. Her husband who was in the living room sprung into action and they fled on a motorbike.

And then there was this one time my mother-in-law took the kids out to the field (padang) nearby and she was carrying Jared. We had two bicycles, she was on one of them, carrying Jared (I think) and another maid was with her carrying two other kids. She was merely chatting up with her long-time friend when someone on a motorbike yanked her gold chain from behind giving her a nasty burn on her neck. They took the chain and left a befuddled and terrified mother-in-law, maid, neighbor and kids trudging home fearfully.

I love MyCity but the location of MyHouse has become impossible. Just yesterday, we found out that my husband found out that someone went into his car (we leave it unlock sometimes when the car is parked inside the house compound) and took his touch-n-go and SmartTag! That’s a couple of hundred dollars worth of toll fees in there and the cost of the cards and the tag?? In total, I think that’s already RM320 gone….just like that!

It’s just the thought of people coming into the house compound so easily, helping themselves to the stuff we have out on the compound makes me sick to my stomach. Everytime I want to open the gate, I am scared.

Thank goodness we’re going to be moving to a new place soon.

I made it!!! Can you believe it???

Nanowrimo winner icon

Nanowrimo Winner Certificate

I, myself, can't believe I went this far. Only a few days ago, I thought about giving up. 50,000 words...when I have only written 35,056 words? I had about 14,944 words more to go!!! Where in the world do I find the time?

How I progressed from 0 to 50,000

I don't get anything from NanoWriMo except for a web certificate that I can look at from time to time. And also tell the world that I made it. I can boast about it to my friends and family members...but I don't get anything monetary in return.

But the feeling of having come so far, trudged through the month of non-sleep, coffee, ciggarrettes and grouchiness is....worth it!

I can't tell you how I feel. The jubilance. The 'Yes!!!" It's a personal challenge. And I've reached it. And now I can start going back to work and tell all my clients how sorry I am for having neglected them...blah blah blah.

But whenever I set out to do something, I don't often give up. I came very damn close to just GIVING UP. But then I remembered....damn, GIVE UP is not even in my dictionary.

So, thank you to the staff of Nanowrimo for giving me the courage. For helping me see that anything can be done with a deadline. Although the deadline is crazy, but if one sets one's mind to it, ANYTHING can happen.

You've just added one extra notch to my bedpost...and I have one more thing, one more credential to boast about now.

Thank you!

Marsha
www.marshamaung.com