Here is the story, I was hearing this case while waiting for mine.

It is a case against Maid Agency. Let’s name the person A. A engage a maid agency to get a maid to look after her baby and SIL baby. The agency provided her a maid. After working a few days, the maid said she don’t want to take care of baby. She ran away but A’s husband found her. A return her to the agency and ask for a replacement. In total, A paid more than 8K.

Agency didn’t give her any maid and it is already 8 months. A insist that the maid the agency sent must have a passport which the previous maid didn’t have.

Agency gave a lot of excuse saying that the approval process takes a long time, bla…bla…bla.
Tuan President awarded A with 7K+, agency has to pay A back within 14 days.

There you go, if you have any maid agency issue, you can bring it to consumer court.

Some lady called me today with an unknown number. I suspect it to be a SCAM.

Lady: Do you know how to speak mandarin? *in mandarin*
I: I don’t know. Who do you want to speak to? *in mandarin*
Lady: *hang up*

Funny thing, I spoke mandarin to her when I told her I don’t know how to speak mandarin. Yeah, I am not fluent in my mandarin. Half pail of water – direct translation from Cantonese.

After I told my friend this, they also tell me that they encountered the same thing. It is probably her telling you that you win a lot of money and want to transfer money to your account. She will ask for your account number and name. She does the transfer and you can see the transaction in your account. However the money is not actually deposited and you cannot withdraw it out.

She will tell you that she accidentally over transfer or deposited her commission in. She will ask you to transfer back part of the money. If you fall for that, then your money will be gone.

She can still revert back the amount transfer to you earlier. I am not sure how she can do that but until and unless you can withdraw the money. Never transfer back any money to any stranger.

The above was told by my friend. So beware of SCAM.

As you know Penang started a new bus system with a batch of new big buses. I am not sure why it has taken so long for Penang to improve their bus system. Not to mention the cab taking a lot of advantage in charging people an exorbitant rate and not using the meter.

Rapid Penang is still new and it covered most of the places in Penang Island. If you want details of the bus route, click here. However, they didn’t publish the rates of the tickets. Tickets are priced at RM1-RM3.

I took the children to have fun sitting on the bus. They were excited. We took from Bayan Baru all the way to town and back. Funny the fare going was RM2 but the coming back trip was RM1.50. Nope, we go on where they drop us off.

The going trip was pleasant, the seats were leather but the return trip seat was hard plastic. It is tough to sit for a long time. My butt was really painful after the journey. The back seats of the flooring of the bus are quite high and the seats were raise up. My head almost touch the top of the bus when I sat there. It was difficult for some senior citizen to climb up and sit.

So when you are visiting Penang, remember to try Rapid Penang (nope it is not a white water rafting adventure). You can almost go round island trip with it.

Hard Plastic Chair – No No.

Gbay: China Toys Recall

Suddenly my blog turn sunny with the FireFly banner. I kind of like the color tone. It brightens everything up. Bravo firefly for making this site a little sunny today.

The top banner was up on my blog for a few weeks without ads. I procrastinated (overused word), from taking it down. When I finally did last week, an email came from the Ads Network, stating there is an incoming ad. Duh! I had to go dig the code and put it back up.

I am always supportive of the local companies. I must keep the Malaysian spirit up. Now where are my sun glasses?

Most Malaysian is having trouble accepting payment from PPP because paypal upgraded their system. Somewhere along the process of accept payment, you need to enter a US account. Paypal is going to fix it but we do not know exactly when and we have a 30 days expiry to meet. Tonight, I was trying to think out of the box and manage to successfully accept all my PPP payment, legally.

How? All this while, I have a US trading account because my hubby and I invest in US shares. It is pretty simple to do an investment in US shares online, maybe I share about it in my next post, if I have the time.

Anyway, I keyed in my US trading account, because that account can be use as a checking account too. Guess what, it successfully went through. Amazingly, all my payment was auto accepted. :dance: :dance: :dance:

I have another method but it is risky.

I accidentally bum into this blog and I love it. I am sure you will too. It is blogging in a different manner. No words at all. Nope it is not a photoblog. Although the blog does not have words, it has a story. A very creative story. Bravo to stickgal. Am I getting all of you excited?

Visit http://stickgal.blogspot.com. She uses drawings to create interesting love story with all kinds of expressions. If you are bored and doesn’t want any heavy reading, hop to her blog.

One of stickgal.blogspot.com cartoon:

I always want to write a Will and was thinking on it for a long time. Hey it is a piece of paper that will protect my children or at least fund their living for the rest of their lives if God were to take me home. I don’t want to work so hard and all my fortune gets stuck with the government. A Will would certainly get the legal issues out of the way. Recently my brother did a Will and he told me it is very easy to do. He told me that his lawyer friend had a template, fill in the blanks (your properties’ or asset details, your fund details, etc), how you want to distribute it, name 2 executors and get 2 witnesses to sign on it. It sounds so simple.

The hard part for me was my children are very young 4 and 2, I need a trusted guardian to be able to manage the funds and take care of them when I am gone. The question here is who can I trust to handle my children well. One of these days, I must approach some lawyer friends of mine and work it out.

Today I registered my son Tim for primary school. It was a breeze. It is opened for children born in year 2001 and 2002. The clerk took the birth cert and the copy. She chopped it to certify Tim had registered to the school. It also means that we cannot register Tim for other schools. She also asked us some personal details. I was wondering why she asked our income. Maybe the school wants to see which children needs books or food sponsorship especially for lower income group.

Anyway, the registration took 10 minutes and we were out of there. We have to go back in Jan 2008 to complete the registration. My first parenting experience in primary school registration, mark another parenting milestone. :giggles:

If your child is born in the year 2001 and 2002, start registering him/her.

As you know, school started last week. All the anxious mothers are sending their little toddler to school. A few mothers are in a dilemma on when to start. So I thought I might share some of my experiences.

For me, I started my children with nursery cum preschool at age of 2. I had no choice because I didn’t have any reliable babysitter. If I did, I probably let them go to school at age of 5. I am not so keen on pressurizing my children with their academic results at this stage or age. Which is why I hate teachers who tell me that my son has not done his homework? Hey he is only 4, give him a break. So what if he doesn’t complete his homework, it is probably no value because the homework is a vicious cycle of writing alphabets or numbers.

If you have decided to start your child with school, prepare your child for it. You can bring your child to check out the place. Brain wash Tell him/her what he will do in school, introduce the teachers to him/her. Make it informal as possible so that there is no build up of anxiety or fear. I believed once the child get acquainted with the teacher, your child have no problem going to school. Bottom line is find school with friendly teachers. Emily has a favorite teacher which is why she has no problem waking up for school.

Before the first day, you can take your child to shop for his/her school bag or water tumbler. Let them pick one that they like. Make them feel excited. You can also let them have 1 small toy that he/she carry to school, able to keep in the bag during class time. It acts as a security blanket to him/her.

Lastly on the day of school, do not be anxious or keep telling the child about school. Act casual like any other normal day. As stated, we do not want to build anxiety and fear. Your child is smart to sense your anxiety. It will be good on the first day to be with them in school, so that you can also experience what activities the school have. Second day, you can quietly sneak out.

After the above said if your child still cries, you just have to play mean and walk away quickly. Otherwise, the more you pacify, the more he cries and the harder for you to leave. The teachers are experience enough to handle situation like this. If they are not then it really tells you something about the school. You may have to live with the crying for a week or so. If it goes more than 1-2 months, it shows that your child is not ready or the school is questionable.

Tim didn’t cry for the first week or second week. However, the nursery had a very high turn over of teachers which he didn’t like. He is not so good with fierce teacher because he is a timid boy. When he tells us he doesn’t want to go to school, we know that his class has change teacher. As for Emily, she cried for a month or so every morning to school but during school time, she enjoyed it. Eventually she stopped the morning cry when she got acquainted with her favorite teacher.

Last night, I just got an email saying there is going to be a year end promotion for photobook. I promised some of you if I hear any good offers, I will let you know. Here are the offers for A3, 30×30, A4 Landscape, A4 Portrait & 21×21 photobook.