Day +1171 : Comprehensive blood test package - RM100 only

I am fine today.

I have here with me a few vouchers that entitle you a comprehensive Blood Test Package which consists of 63 types of tests (inclusive of AFP, CEA, HIV & ECG). Each one of them costs only RM100, the normal charge for such a test would be RM270 :-)

You can present the voucher to any BPDC or BP Lab outlet before 31/12/2009 to carry out the test.

You can purchase the voucher from me if you are interested.

The voucher (Click on it to have a larger view)

See you next post :-)

Day +798 : Cheap blood test package

I am fine today.

I have here with me a few vouchers that entitle you a comprehensive Blood Test Package which consists of 63 types of tests (inclusive of AFP, CEA, HIV & ECG). Each one of them costs only RM100, the normal charge for such a test would be RM270 :-)

You can present the voucher to any BPDC or BP Lab outlet before 31/12/2008 to carry out the test.

You can purchase the voucher from me if you are interested.

The voucher (Click on it to have a larger view)
See you next post :-)

Day +560 : Entering ATM pin in reverse to call police?

I am fine today.

I received an email from one of my nephews with the following forwarded message:

“Sekiranya anda dirompak dan dipaksa untuk mengeluarkan wang akaun anda daripada mesin ATM...anda boleh meminta bantuan cara senyap denganmemasukkan no Pin anda di mesin ATM cara terbalik........

Sebagai contoh jika no Pin anda adalah 123456, jadi anda harus memasukkan nombor 654321......

Mesin ATM akan mengenalpasti nombor tersebut adalah nombor yg diterbalikkan drpd nombor yg sebenarnya melalui kad anda yg masukkan kedalam mesin tersebut......

Mesin ATM akan tetap mengeluarkan wang tunai seperti biasa, tapi apa yg kita tidak ketahui, pihak Bank dgn segera akan menghantar pihak berkuasa (Polis) kepada anda....

Perkara ini pernah disiarkan di TV baru-baru ini dan ianya menyatakan kaedah ini jarang diguna disebabkan ramai orang tidak mengetahui akan kewujudan sistem yg seumpama ini.....

Sebarkanlah maklumat ini seluas mungkin untuk manfaat kepada orang lain....”

Or in English the message should read:

“If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse.

For example if your pin number is 123456 then you would put in 654321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.

The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.

This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists.

Please pass this along to everyone possible.”

My nephew asked me whether this is true. I did a test on the ATM machine and get a “wrong pin number” message :-) So no money will be delivered to you and no police will be called. This message is simply another email hoax. Please don’t forward it if you receive one.

Though it is a hoax, the idea is quite brilliant. It is very common for the car hijackers to force their victims to reveal the ATM pin. As written on my blog Day+ 244 (Government & robbers, who is more efficient?), my friends experienced this last year. If this system was in place, the hijackers would already be caught.

However, one important issue needs to be addressed in implementing this system. It is for those who uses symmetrical password such as 123321; reversing the password bears no different to the original one in this case :-( So the system would not know whether you are in trouble through the password.

If the programmer overlooks this issue, then you would be caught by police every time you withdraw money using the symmetrical password :-(

See you next post :-)

Day +514 : A win-win solution? (2)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday...

An open government would not impose all sorts of restrictions to impede the development of mother-tongue education of other races. It is very unfortunate to hear people boasting that the shifting of S.R.J.K (C) Ladang Harcroft as a win-win solution. Under an open government, the vocabulary of “shifting” should not exist; it should be as simple as “just close and build” the school as needed.

Under the current government policy, the Chinese community is very nervous about the closing down of Chinese school because once it is closed down, it is forever closed down and the total number of Chinese school would be reduced by one, but on the other hand, the Chinese population is growing.

For a citizen that could not think properly as claimed by many politicians (that is why they like to think for us), I would treat the shifting as a lose-lose solution. The shifting only shows that the Chinese community does not get a fair and just treatment from the government. On the other hand, the government would lose the contribution of the Chinese school and most importantly, the heart of people.

See you next post :-)

Day +513 : A win-win solution? (1)

I am fine today.

Many politicians claimed that the shifting of S.R.J.K (C) Ladang Harcroft from Perlis to Puchong is a win-win solution. Some others said that this showed that our government is now very open and is no longer discriminating against the Chinese school. Many people also see this first ever cross-state shifting of Chinese school as a great breakthrough.

These are all the “good news” that we get from newspapers, but how many Chinese would share their view? Let me share with you what I think.

The coming of Prime Minister to Puchong is not more than an election show to convince the Chinese that under the effort of the two Chinese political parties – MCA and Gerakan – the Prime Minister is taking care of the interest of Chinese community. The question we need to ask is : if the election is not around the corner, would Prime Minister be coming to Puchong?

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +511 : Prime Minister is coming to town

I am fine today.

Our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will be coming to Puchong this Friday (30 November 2007) to officiate the opening ceremony of the S.R.J.K (C) Ladang Harcroft (哈古乐华小). The school is nicely situated on the hill top and is within walking distance from my house.

It is extremely difficult to have a new Chinese school in Malaysia due to government policy. A lot of Chinese schools here are over-crowded with almost 50 students per class, but the government still reluctant to establish new school :-( So the only way to overcome this problem is to shift those Chinese school with very few or no student here, and this is the case for S.R.J.K (C) Ladang Harcroft.

The government plays no part in building the school too; it was built by IOI Group led by Tran Sri Dato’ Lee Shin Cheng.

Even though Malaysian Chinese contributed substantial fund to the government through taxes and various other business activities, but they are denied of the basic right of having Chinese school :-(

With this, I don’t see the point to have Prime Minister here to officiate the opening ceremony, and certainly I will not attend the event even though the school is so near to my house.

See you next post :-)

Day +283 : It is more blessed to give than to receive (5)

I am fine today.

Noticing that my income is quite significantly reduced as what I mentioned in my Blog Day +260, my youngest brother, Richard, generously offered me half of his monthly sales commission, without any obligation. I told him that my current income is sufficient to meet our family’s needs and therefore I should not accept this offer from him. However, he insisted that I should take his offer. He earned quite a lucrative amount of sales commission last month. When I received a cheque from him a few days ago, I told him that I would set aside this money as a special fund for our family so that anyone could benefit from it in times of need. He said, “No. This is your money, keep it for yourself.”

While convincing me to accept his offer, he mentioned one incident that happened long time ago. It was related to a profit sharing scheme of a business which he and I was promised 30% of profit sharing in the proportion of 10% and 20% respectively. However, due to some complicated circumstances, the result did not turn out as what he expected. In order to prevent dispute that could affect the business, I gave him 3% of my share. This increased his share to 13% and my share reduced to 17%. I almost forgot about this but he still remember this.

I gave long time ago and already experienced the joy of giving at that time. And now, I also received the material blessing from him. Double blessing :-) The way he persuaded me to accept his giving this time showed that he also gives with a joyful heart :-)

May God bless him!

See you next post :-)

Day +282: It is more blessed to give than to receive (4)

I am fine today.

I talked on the above topic on my Blog Day +266, Day +267, Day +268 and today I would like to continue to talk about it again.

When my nephew came to stay with us, I share with him our cars also. At that time, my nephew, my wife and I were sharing two cars. If my nephew needed to use car, he had to check with us if the car was available. After I was sick, he assumed ownership of my old Proton Wira, including the maintenance :-) Since he is the “unofficial” owner now, I need to check with him if the car is available whenever I need to use the car :-)

My nephew is now dating a girlfriend ‘fiercely’, there is little chance that the car would be free after working hour. It looks like I put myself into an inconvenient situation by giving the car to him, isn’t it? And you might ask, “Where is the blessing of giving?”

Seeing me not having a car to drive, my sister who stayed nearby gave me her Proton Perdana, which is a lot newer and better than my old Proton Wira :-) So you see, if I didn’t give my old car to my nephew, I won’t get this newer and better car from my sister :-) This is the blessing that I received from giving.

Of course when I give something away, I am really not expecting material blessing such as this. The joy and happiness of seeing people enjoying what I share or give is already a tremendous blessing, but sometimes material blessing do come along.

Giving is a lesson. I am still learning about it everyday and I am very convinced that “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.

Give and you shall receive!

See you next post :-)

Day +268 : It is more blessed to give than to receive (3)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

Why is it more blessed to give than to receive? The very first reason is that there are a lot more opportunities for us to give than to receive, and giving is within our control while receiving is beyond our control. If we enjoy receiving we have to wait for someone to give but if we enjoy giving, we can do it right away!

I opened my house to my nephews and nieces who came here to study and to work. Currently, three of them stayed permanently at my house and another one or two would come during the weekend. No one needs to pay anything to stay with us – food and lodging are provided free of charge.

One of them sent me a message thanking me providing him free delicious food and lodging for a whole week during the last Chinese New Year :-) I replied to him that I was so happy to have him here and my house was always open to him. He could come and stayed with us anytime he likes – free of charge :-)

My heart was full of joy when I saw them enjoy staying here with us, especially when they said that some foods that I cooked were more delicious than the restaurant :-)

I am not the richest and my house is not the biggest or the most beautiful one, and yet they feel that this is the most comfortable place they could stay. I like them staying with me. To me, they are like my children :-)

Someone said that I am over generous, but if you know the reason behind, it may not be that generous anymore :-) I will explain the reason later.

See you next post :-)

Day +267 : It is more blessed to give than to receive (2)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

When I was young in Sarawak, I liked to follow adults to visit the native Iban friends during the eve of Gawai Day - their major festival equivalent to Chinese New Year celebration. These Iban friends, though normally poorer than Chinese, always served us the best food they had happily. In contrast, when they visited us during the eve of Chinese New Year, we hid the best food and gave them only the inferior food. Who was more blessed? I believe the Ibans were more blessed because they gave truly. They were poorer externally but abundantly rich internally. I saw the Chinese, busy hiding superior food, were richer outside but poorer inside.

It had been so many years I did not have chance to celebrate Chinese New Year in Sarawak. Next time, if I were celebrating Chinese New Year there, I will definitely treat them good food, as good as what we ourselves have :-)

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +266 : It is more blessed to give than to receive (1)

I am fine today.

One Sunday morning, while we were driving to the church, my son Daniel told us that a bird was eating one of the papayas on the papaya tree at the backyard. My mother-in-law quickly responded, “It can still be eaten,” meaning that we should ‘fight’ with the bird for the papaya. “Do you all agree we give this papaya to the bird?” I asked. Everyone agreed and felt very happy about this.

This is one example that shows the blessing – joy and happiness – that we enjoy through giving unconditionally. Even giving a papaya to a bird will reap such a blessing, what more to say when we give to human?

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +188

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

This half an hour disturbance caused me havoc. I had to speed up everything to the extent that I need to take bath while cooking the Beehon :-( How to achieve this? Simple :-) First, fry the ingredients, then pour in water and then quickly rush to the bath room to take bath. Rush back to kitchen before the water started to boil. You have about 2-3 minutes to take bath, anything longer than this might turn everything in the wok into charcoals :-)

I did not have chance to put on my cloth before I need to continue my cooking. Seeing me frying the Beehon naked, this busy body Joseph came and asked, “Baba, why you need to take off cloth to cook?”

After the cooking, I rushed to my sister’s house to borrow her car. There are two possible routes from my house to UH. One is through Jalan Puchong and the other through Federal Highway. I decided to use Jalan Puchong this time, but not long after driving, I encountered heavy traffic jam. Then I started to feel regret to choose this route and imagine how smooth the traffic is on the other route. I believe if I choose to use Federal Highway and hit a traffic jam there, I would also imagine how smooth the traffic is on Jalan Puchong. Whichever way I choose, I would always think that I make wrong decision when caught in a traffic jam. This type of thinking always makes me unhappy.

Rather than feeling sorry to choose the wrong route, why not assume that the traffic on the other route is much worse than this? This will definitely make us happy because we think that we are so clever and have made a damp good decision, even amidst a heavy traffic jam :-)

See you next post.

Day +187

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) = 126(Normal 130-180)
Platelet = 137(Normal 150-450)
White Blood Count (WBC) = 3.6(Normal 4 - 11)
Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) = 1.8 (Normal 1.5 - 8.0)

I went to UH to do my follow-up this morning. The white blood count dropped from 4.4 to 3.6. It looks like it is still fluctuating. The platelet and red blood count (Haemoglobin) have been increasing consistently over the past 4 months.

Doctor reduced my daily Ciclosporin (anti-GVHD) intake from 50mg to 25mg and my next follow-up will be one month later.

My wife went to work early in the morning and my maid is still having her holiday. So without me, my mother-in-law has to take care of baby Aaron, Adriel and Joseph. With this, it is very difficult for her to prepare lunch. So I volunteered to fry Singapore Style Beehon (星洲米粉) for lunch before going to hospital.

While I was busy preparing the ingredients for Beehon, the bank called me to inform me that my current account was overdrawn. I had to top it up immediately, but still be penalized RM50 for this. At that time, I just couldn’t figure out what caused the overdrawn, I always monitor the balance ‘properly’ before issuing cheques.

When I checked my account online, I only realized that four cheques that I issued to UH for CMV testing after my bone marrow transplant were only cleared on 5 January this year. These cheques were issued on 2 August, 7 August, 24 August and 29 September last year. Since they were issued so long ago, I already ‘lost track’ of them.

What took it more than four months just to clear a cheque? Sigh! This is Malaysia Boleh! Even receive money also lazy. What can we expect from them?

Anyway, this is how some of the government departments work. The UH medical team is excellent :-)

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +149

I am fine today.

This afternoon, our Indonesian maid went home for holiday after working for us for about 3 years. She will come back to work on 11 January 2007. We have to pay for her return air ticket between KLIA and Bali, and we also promised to pay all her transportation fee over there. She said she needs to take another flight to reach her ‘kampung’ (rural village) over there. We do not object to her request, though there are cheaper means of transportation from Bali to her ‘kampung’. Of course she still enjoys full salary during the holiday.

The maid brought a lot of things back to Indonesia. The low cost flight service AirAsia weighted her hand luggage during check in and found out that it is overweight. She was forced to transfer some clothes to her check in luggage, and had to pay about RM100 overweight fee. According to my wife, AirAsia charged RM14 per kg of overweight luggage for flight between KLIA and Bali. What a lucrative income for them! The ticket price is about RM150, excluding miscellaneous charges. The overweight charge is equivalent to 66.7% of the ticket price. My brother, Richard, already warned me this new lucrative income generating measure by AirAsia a few days earlier. If you are a ‘powerful’ passenger who always carry heavy hand luggage, be aware about this, else it will definitely burn a hole in your wallet.

We are quite confident we can manage without the maid. My mother-in-law is now promoted to the ‘chief cook’. The girl who is sleeping with the maid since I was sick had been asked to sleep with my wife for the past few days. We also asked the two boys to involve in some house works such as sweeping floor, mopping floor, cleaning toilet and etc. A reward system is established to motivate them to do the work. For example, 5 points for sweeping floor, 3 points for cleaning a toilet and etc. I issue them reward coupon at the end of the day. They can redeem this coupon for ‘computer game time’ or purchase something they like.

See you next post :-)

Day +106

I am fine today.

My wife is a government school teacher teaching in Chinese primary school. Due to my sickness, she applied for half-paid leaves from January 2006 until she gave birth to Aaron in the middle of April 2006. The government servants here are entitled for six months of half-paid leaves under certain circumstances. After the two months full-paid maternity leaves from middle of April to the middle of June 2006, she finished off the balanced half-paid leaves entitlement and then applied for unpaid leaves. With this, she takes one year leave and only needs to teach when the school opens in January 2007.

She still received her full salary and allowances even though she is on half-paid or un-paid leaves until now. This means the government is overpaying her. A few days ago, she received a notice from her school that required her to pay back the overpaid amount to the government. The total amount that she owed the government is about RM16400. The proposed pay-back consists of a one-off payment of RM9600, with the balance of RM6800 to be deducted from her next year salary.

I am “amazed” to know that the education department needs almost one year to adjust her salary. It is just like an old car that needs one year to stop after applying the brake. Who know a transplant will fix the problem?

See you next post :-)

Day +78

I am fine today. I would like to talk about some of my experiences in UH.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to continue my treatment in UH after I came back from Kuching, Sarawak.

My first appointment in UH was on the 29, December 2005 which was on Thursday. We were totally new to the hematologist section in UH and we did not know where to find the hematologist in UH. My sister called UH and enquired about the place where we could meet the hematologist. Someone in UH told us that hematology clinic in UH only open on Friday, not on Thursday.

I did not want to miss this appointment. So I called the hematologist in NMSC, Kuching to confirm that the appointment was on Thursday. The hematologist there told me that the hematologist in UH agreed to meet me on Thursday. If the clinic was open on Thursday, I could just go straight to the clinic to see the hematologist there, but now the clinic was not open, where could I find the hematologist?

Fortunately, my pastor knew a specialist in UH. He helped me to contact the specialist to contact the hematologist. At the end we were told to meet the hematologist in the hematology ward. After my first appointment, I only knew that most of the time the hematologists were seeing patient in the ward, not at the hematology clinic.

See you next post :-)