I read plenty of maid drama and I am sure you do too. I believed many maids are not trained properly, not taught the culture or some of them are plain lazy. Anyway that’s not what I want to blog about. I want to talk about some good maids’ story.

Every year my mother will get a part time maid to stay in for a few days to help her cook, wash and do chores. I went home this Chinese New Year and stayed in my parents place.

I must that tell that this maid is an angel. First thing in the morning, she greets me Good Morning with a big smile. She is very young from her look but very pleasant looking. A couple of days later, she asked me if there are clothes to wash or iron. She cleans well too. I would recommend her to anyone. She is all smiles.

Even when she didn’t understand my dad, she tried to help him. My dad speaks no bahasa. On the last day, when the driver came and fetch her, she told me to search her things. I decline and told her it is alright, she can go. However she insisted and poured everything on the floor. I had to stuff everything back into her bag.

I hope to meet her again someday and pray that she will have a good life moving forward. Good maids are hard to get. If you are having one, treasure it!

Why did we take 8 hours to drive from Genting to Penang? Actually it took longer 8 hours exclude dinner time. We started at 11am to descend the hill and hoping to reach Penang by 4pm but we reached Penang at 9pm. Look at the picture to see what the problem is.

At the foot at the hill, we saw smoke, more like hot spring shooting out from the car. My hubby stopped by the side of the road and did a quick check. The top of the radiator cracked. Fortunately across the road, there was a police station where we can ask for a nearby workshop. Great news the one and only workshop was ½ km away.

We went to the workshop, the mechanic told us there isn’t any spare parts that can fit into our car. We need to wait for parts to be sent up from KL. We have no choice but to wait. At the surrounding area, not many shops were opened, however there were chickens and a talking bird to keep the children entertained. I am glad the children were not sleepy or cranky. After we got the car fixed, they slept all the way back.

We were glad that the car did not break down half way on the hill or half way through Batang Kali. We may not find a workshop. Theories of why the radiator broke, it could be due to stress when the car is coming downhill or may be due to cold weather of the car and overheated when descending down the hill. I believed God help us all the way and thank him for that.

More about the smart talking bird in the next post…..

I am impressed with KWSP. They set up a branch near my residential which is very convenient for me. I am doing another round of withdrawal to reduce my house loan, rather than pay the hefty interest rates for my housing loan. This year I am a bit lazy and wanted to speed things up with less stress. I went to my housing loan bank, pay a small fees to get all the documents ready for EPF withdrawal. In less than 2 weeks, I had all the papers with me.

I went to KWSP with the required papers and fill up the required form. I got a ticket and only had to wait 20 minutes due to lunch break. While I was waiting, I got another ticket to get the iAkaun pin so that I can check my EPF account online. First time I am seeing govt officer smiling when serving their customers. It sure earned lots of plus points from me.

It took 5-10 minutes for them to verify my papers and do the thumbs print. She told me it takes 1 month for me to receive the cheque. Thumbs up all the way for KWSP!

Gbay: Mattel Toys Recall (With Pictures)

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.

This year, the IRB dept didn’t send me any form and no I didn’t do any e-filling last year. My hubby got his form but where is mine. I thought I can give excuse that I don’t have to declare since they didn’t send me any form. Yeah right. Anyway, I went to the IRB office to sort it out.

First I had to get a number. Being kiasu, just in case the e-filling does not work, at least I have backup forms. I asked the officer to give me some forms. She told me that I either do e-filling or get the form, cannot have both. Alamak. What if the system does not work? Let’s hope it does. I waited and strangely that they generated my PIN very quickly. I ask the officer to check whether I owe IRB any money. Last year I checked, I knew that I owe them a small amount in 2004. He asked me to take another number as he doesn’t have access to the system. Sigh.

The other counter took a longer wait. It was lunch time, 1 person serving only. I waited for 20 minutes before my turn. I must tell you the system is so complicated. They have 2 systems, the old and the new. My guess is that they are in the process of migration. She went to the old system to check every single year. With the old system, she had to calculate manually year by year. Yes, it did show in 2004, that I owe them money. Then she when to the new system, scroll up and down, left and right, she came to the conclusion I have a refund which was 3 times the amount I owe. I wonder why when I always pay to the dot. By the way, year before 2004, the account balance.

In 2004, I miscalculated, which is why I owe them money. 2005 was a mystery as I don’t receive any J form. Maybe I overpaid. I asked her whether I can contra the claims with the tax of 2006. She told me that I need to submit more documents. Or I can claim the amount right away by filling the pink form, which I did. It will be more paperwork for them than I doing the paperwork.

Back in 2005, I did submit a document to pay the owing money from my husband account as suggested by the customer service agents when I called them. I wrote in provided the necessary documents. However it was not done. The officer did a check on his account and told us the department will issue him a cheque, it was process on 25 March 2007. Two years to process a refund.

Will the tax office be more efficient? Give them some time, eventually they will get there, I hope.

Tips, you can ask anyone to go to the IRB office to generate the PIN. All you need is the IC number.

Need I say more?

Service still not advancing here. I dragged going the Pos Office. I had no choice, my car insurance reminder didn’t come and I was late in renewing my road tax. Usually, my insurance company will renew my road tax but I need it today. I went to JPJ, bumma, the network was down. I had to resort to Pos Office. Usually I pay all my bills and whatever through Internet. However I cannot pay my road tax through Internet. How I wish I can. Can the government do something about this?

Anyway, while waiting for my turn, I saw many still paying bills through Pos Office. I mean I can setup a counter with Internet connection and process their bills with a fee without the wait. Hahaha..side job for anyone who wants to get a quick buck. The staff there as usual took their own sweet time. By the way, only some Pos Office provides the road tax renewal service, not all. Talk about consistency. Now do you know which Pos Office delivered this service? I don’t know too.

I never invested in local shares before and I never knew how. I do have an account in US to invest in US shares. That was because my company has a benefit share plan for us to purchase our company shares at discounted rates.

Anyway, last Friday, a courier package came and it was from StemLife. The company is going public listed. Cool. 😎 I didn’t read the prospectus, it was as thick as my programming books. I read the form and was tempted to invest. It was a 2 pages form, but the things I have to do, to successfully apply for the shares, is exhausting. I received the package on 29 Sept, the dateline is 5th Oct. Not much time to work with.

Things to do:

1. I have to apply for a CDS account to be able to buy any local shares. Fortunately I know a friend who works in the share trading company. I got her help to get me the CDS account on the same day. 1 obstacle done.

2. I have to make a copy of my IC, front and back on the same page.

3. I have to fill in the form carefully. No liquid paper can be use on the form.

4. I have to get a banker’s cheque. Personal cheques are not allowed. I blog about it yesterday, it was done too.

5. I have to buy two 50sen stamp, one for A envelope and one for B envelope. They will send you back the A envelope with your cheque if it is not successful.

6. I need to send it, it says using Ordinary mail. You can opt to drop it into their office if you are staying in KL. It is really impossible for people outstation to send ordinary mail and reach the destination before date due. I send it using Express Mail, not sure whether they will reject my application. By the way, register mail is a no no because PO box cannot sign when receive. :giggles:

7. Mail it and wait for response. Phew.

Now all I have to sit back and wait for them to tell me if it is successful. By the way, the company will ballot, if you get pick, the shares will be sold to you. If I don’t I need to go back to the bank, to claim back the money.

I just learn that you can do all the above except for number 1, using Internet banking. In order to do that, you need to setup the account first by submitting a physical form. For Maybank, you can use ATM or Internet Banking. Somehow, I don’t know why StemLife was not listed.

It was a great experience though to beat the deadline. If it was from some company that I don’t know, it will probably end up in the bin.

Anyone want to know how to invest in US share?

Continuing my story from yesterday, about the extremely unsatisfactory florist. As most of you commented, it will be offensive to tell my kind friend about it. On the other hand, I was very grateful what she has done. I send a thank you message to her, expressing my gratitude. Knowing her, she asked me how was the gift. Oh oh. In the end, I told her about it, in a tactful manner. She said she wants to look at it, so I took a picture and send it to her.

What I got:	What was ordered:

She was furious, not with me but with the florist. She called the florist and I suppose bombarded her. They were in shocked when they saw the picture too. They apologized and will resend another bouquet to me. Weird, they should send an apology bouquet to my friend too. They have to send it to my office as I already started work. The bouquet came, a very small one. Peculiarly, it was send to an admin, usually bouquet are received by the receptionist. The admin called me to pass it to me. Casually I asked, why did it land on your desk? You know what she told me? The florist shop belongs to her manager’s (Senior Manager’s position) wife. Oh oh. What a small world?

I blog this NOT because I want to offend my friend or put her in an awkward position. I really thank her for the special gift and the thoughtfulness of her. This blog is to let you know that when you order anything from the Internet, you really have to be careful, especially from people you do not know. There is a case where this guy bought a second hand notebook and when he got it, it was already broken.

As for florist, usually they will use affiliate florist if it is from another state. The affiliate florist will not have a clue or picture what the customer order. It is merely base on descriptions.

p/s The chicken essences are at the bottom of the basket but a different brand. Not sure whether it tastes good, I let you know when I tasted it. 😛

Tracy’s side of the story.

Please pray for this mother Lisa (aka SCB). :pray:

Details here: http://mumsgather.blogspot.com/2006/04/fellow-bloggers-unite.html

After reading more about Lisa’s progress from a couple of websites like Jomel and Diane. I got to know her last name. Her name is exactly the same as my school mate. Both also has 1 daughter. I found out more from Zara’s mama, that she is the same age as me.

I hold off all my work and called my best friend. My best friend told me the incident. Yes, she was my class mate. It is so very sad. I know her from school and she is a very friendly person. I haven’t seen her since we left school. My best friend has always updated me with her news and others too.

It is such a small world. Lisa, if you can hear me from your heart. Do wake up for the sake of your daughter, mum, dad and your brother. I will continue to pray for you and your family. :pray:

Latest update, she is out from ICU from this post.

Special Blog for SCB here: http://forscb.blogspot.com/

Last weekend I took my children to take their photographs for passport application. Hubby cannot do it with his camera because we have no spot lights and back drop. Emily didn’t cooperate. Every time we put her on the chair, she walked towards mummy. When mummy carry her on the lap, she struggle to get away. Fortunately mummy brought jelly and attracted her to cooperate. She looks a bit grumpy in the photo.

Today I brought them to immigration. We had breakfast, took our own sweet time to get there. I know if we go there before the office open, there will be people queuing up and takes a while for the officers to serve all those people. There will be a longer wait. By the time we reached there, at 9am, it was just right. I took the number and I was the next to be served. (This only apply to Penang Immigration, not sure about other state).

Documents Required For Children: