The million dollar baby question.

To have or not to have, that is the question! Believe me when I say, that really is a big question mark for me. As I weigh out the pros and cons as Dexter did, I seem to come up with a similar list,

Cons: Annoying, troublesome, 24/7 full attention.... the list is endless.
Pros: They're cute??

Before I go further, let me make myself clear by saying that this is about how I feel about the subject and I speak for myself and myself only.

If you love kids, that's a different story altogether. I'm talking about people like me, people who don't have the urge for it and simply loving the comfortable life as it is. Why is it a must to have kids especially when you've been married for as long as I have? Why is it a necessity to have children? To me this is a paradox.

There are so many people out there that can't wait to have kids, I'm talking about most of my female friends. And when they do have some, I'm ever so thrilled for them because they've always wanted children and their wish came true. I, on the other hand, don't ever remember saying that I want children!

I honestly cannot convince myself otherwise! Just the other day we had some neighbours over for dinner and as we were half way through dinner, one kid puked all over the dinner table! Not only did I feel grossed out, I lost my appetite for a meal long anticipated. Everyone at that table looked at me and said, "We're not giving you a good image of parenthood and kids now are we?" I did what I do best at such situations, smile.

I constantly get bombarded by my mother(naturally!) and girlfriends who've just turned into mothers on how I should have a child now, right away, tout de suite! And I'm thinking, this concerns no one but my husband and I and while both of us are as happy and content as newly weds(even after 4 years of marriage), we don't want change, we like it just as we are, period.

Maybe the fact that I teach and deal with children every single day in the week is enough for me to not want to deal with them at home too.
I'll admit this much, there are some kids that are nice and pleasant to be around. But let's face it, that's just a small fraction in our present 21st century where children too, like adults, have evolved. We're all spoiled with choice hence we're spoiled!

Since I'm unable to convince myself to desire kids and neither can anyone else I know, no matter how hard they try, I've decided Mr. Miracle do his fair bit and change my mind.

Am I really 30?

I just turned 30 years old and the funny thing is that I don't think it has sunk in yet.
I've been celebrating my 30th for a couple of weeks now, parties with family and friends in hip London and trendy Paris, and waking up the next day feeling like a 100 years old!

I thought when I turn 30, something would change and I'd notice the change. I turned 30... and nothing happened. It's like the age factor is in oblivion. And that's the coolest part of it, life's the same, I'm 30 and so what!

So I looked back at my life and had a reflection of my accomplishments in my 30 years of living. And then it dawned on me, I've managed to stay alive and be able-bodied and that's a true blessing! Sure I've been physically challenged a few times in life, the worst (so far) being bedridden for a couple of months due to a herniated disc but who hasn't right? Some celebrities didn't even live to see 30 - River Phoenix, Aaliyah, James Dean, Tupac Shakur, Heath Ledger to name a few. I consider myself lucky. I also have other areas of my life to be eternally grateful for;

• I'm happily married to a wonderful, caring and tolerant man who loves me for who I am
• I live in charming Paris with a job I take pleasure in
• Understanding and easy going family members who are always there for me no matter what
  
• Wonderful friends who are generous in their friendship
• Extensive globe-trotting

and much more that I can't remember right now because I'm 30 hence excused!

I will however say this;
I'm 30, married, overseas and loving every minute of it!

The trouble with Hallowe'en

Did you know that Hallowe'en originated from Ireland? It's not surprising that not many people are aware of that fact. As a child, exactly what that meant the books never really explained but I knew from movies the Americans had a great deal of fun celebrating it. Besides, any festival that involved ghosts, skeletons, dressing up, doing clever things with exotic vegetables and annoying grumpy neighbours just had to be fun, right?

Hence at age 29 going 30, I carved my first pumpkin-this personage is called Jack O' Lantern. But why are pumpkins made into lanterns? And why is it called Jack O' Lantern?

The word Hallowe'en derives from All Hallow's Eve. It is celebrated the night of the 31st of October, the evening before All Hallows Day or more popularly known as All Saint's Day. Hallowe'en was originally a pagan festival of the dead. Celts in Ireland had a festival called 'Samhain' (pronounced 'sow-in'), which marked the official end of summer and the beginning of the Celtic New Year. On this night the souls of the dead were said to come out and move freely in the land of the living. The tradition of Hallawe'en was taken to the United States by Irish immigrants, and it is now spreading in Europe and other parts of the world. In addition to the souls of the dead, the Devil, witches and numerous spirits are believed to be out, and at the peak of their supernatural powers. How spooky is that!

What is 'Trick or Treat'?
According to an old Irish peasant practice, villager would go from house to house to ask for soul cakes(bread made with currants) in return for promises of prosperity or protection against bad luck. Nowadays, children and teenagers go from house to house asking for small gifts of money, fruit or sweets in return for not playing tricks on the people inside.

So back to why pumpkins are made into lanterns. Well, the Irish legend has it that when a notorious drunkard called Jack died, he was refused entry to Heaven because of his meanness, and he was banned from Hell because he had tricked the Devil on several occasions. However, the Devil gave him a piece of coal to help him find his way in the dark of purgatory, which Jack put into a turnip to make a lantern. The Irish made similar lanterns but when they migrated to America they could not find many turnips so they used pumpkins instead!

So there you go, a scoop on this mysterious festival called Hallowe'en!

The Inconvenient Truth.

Sadly, inconvenience plays a major role in this country especially when you're a foreigner. When I say inconvenience, I also mean - susah, complicated and everything that comes with it.

If there is one thing I've learned from living in France is that, the French love complications. I'm not just saying this from pure observation or obvious circumstances but I've been told by a few French friends themselves that they like complications, they crave for it as life is simply too boring without!

I'll enlighten you with one annoying factor (and place) every foreigner has to go through - The Prefecture.
In the Prefecture is where French administration, particularly the immigration bit, is done. When you have to stay here, for whatever reasons as such marriage with a French citizen or for studies, you need to prove that you are entitled to stay here. They demand a copy of for your personal documents, example: a copy of the birth certificate recently translated in French (of course) for the first year of application. Then for the second year, they ask, again for a copy of the updated translated birth certificate. The third year comes and they still ask for what? A copy of the recently translated birth certificate! What the hell!? The information is not going to change no matter how many times they ask for it. And this applies to all the documents they require which I had to keep submitting countless times, the same documents over and over again! Imagine the amount of papers used just so they don't have to dig up old files. Makes me wonder if they honestly care about the environment as much as they say they do.
In a way, I suppose it makes perfect sense, they WANT to make it inconvenient for you so you'll give up and return to your homeland!

Anyway, after 4 years of agony, mental torture and ridicule, this 'inconvenient' but inevitable part of my life is over! Alleluia!

Parlez-vous français ?

Many of my Malaysian buddies have fled our homeland to another continent. Most of them are in an anglophone country for obvious reasons, people speak English thus making communication a breeze. Then you have others, others who migrated to sushi-land, ice-land, orthodox-land and croissant-land - that would be moi.

While moving to another country means discovering the culture, weather, walking/driving on the other side (for some), getting the right accent/slang so people get you, eating the local food - fitting-in in the whole, there's an extra element in my situation - learning the language, French.
That's the first thing that needs attention.

There is no way in hell one can survive in France without knowing the language. There! I said it.
It's inevitable, you see it, you hear it and you MUST eventually speak it.

It took me a good 6-8 months to learn the basics and now it's a matter of practise and adding vocabularies. Sounds easy right? Well, not so. What happens when you learn French in France? You learn fairly quick, you make great efforts to understand and be understood. Then when you switch to converse in English, everything goes haywire!

I often mix up my English and French grammars. For example, instead of saying, "I watch television", I'd now say "I watch the television".
First of, to understand this, you must know that in the French grammar, there's always an article to every noun in a sentence.
Then there are the spelling similarities like 'example' - 'exemple', future' - 'futur' and more. And of course words that are spelled the same but have a different meaning to them. Let's not even go to Bahasa Melayu cos as I attempt to speak it, only French phrases come out of my mouth and I don't even realise it! How shameful.

This is how I speak to PM and my fellow friends who are like me, on a daily basis,
"You want some menthe in your tisane?" or "I'm fatiguée !".
Frankly I don't mind the teasings I get from my family or friends on my English-French cocktail of words. However I do mind it, alot, when my teaching job requires me to have prefect English. You cannot imagine how annoying it can get when you think of a word and it systematically comes out in français.

Oh well, as a consolation, I'm quadlingual!

Bon Voyage

My sister in London and I in Paris. One might wonder how these two got the courage to leave their homeland and live at the opposite end of Kuala Lumpur.
My parents took us globe trotting from an age as young as 4. This instilled the need to discover different cultures, people, food and has helped us to be more cultivated. It's thanks to this cultivation that I sit here in front of my notebook and sip a glass of my favourite wine, Côtes du Rhone and think to myself how fortunate I've been this year as far as travelling is concerned.
This year PM(my better half) and I explored Madrid, Palma de Majorca, New York, Munich, Salzburg, Strasbourg and Dublin.

Madrid and Palma de Majorca
Warm weathers, inexpensive, laid back and friendly people, a model lifestyle, excellent cuisine - paellas, tapas and sangrias. In conclusion -Absolute paradise.










New York
We got the impression of being in a hollywood movie the whole time. Needs no further explanation. But it must be said, I heart NY!










Munich, Salzburg, Strasbourg
Big people, heavy happy meals - lots of beer and sausages, beautiful sceneries.












Dublin
Good food - excellent beers and whiskies, friendly people and magnificent ocean view. We were lucky with the weather, the sun followed us throughout our Irish trip!

Next up, London where I will step into a new era, 30.

Paris. Love it, Hate it.

As much as I'd like to deny it, I have become "a workaholic, an obsessed traveller, a baguette-cheese-wine-jazz lover, a health and weight conscious gym going addict, a fast paced walker... a Parisian!
I moved to France 4 1/2 years ago for (what else?) love and a new chapter in life. I've lived in various (not forgetting to mention breath-taking) cities in France but Paris is where I am now and I tell myself I'll never be happier elsewhere. Then some days I feel the urge to leave it. Why?

Love:
Charming city, free concerts and parties, celebrity bumping, model friends, easy access to travelling, Malaysian events where you get very casual with the ministers, world cuisines, chocolates/wines/automobiles - expositions of all sorts, daily events happenings, films in original version-English in my case, job opportunities, English speaking people, trendy people.

Hate:
Sucky weather, dog poo filled streets, pee smelling metros, pollution, snobbish people (though I must say this has decreased in the last 10 years), small and overly expensive appartments, ridiculously tiny elevators, everything's more expensive here than outside of it.



It's a love hate relationship with the city. You have good days, you have bad days but you make the best of it in the end.

Another one bites the dust

Here I am again after 2 years of blogging absence. Apparently people are still curious to know more about the so called "good life" in Paris where, when all the districts are put together, takes the form of a giant escargot. And since almost everyone I know who is living abroad gives the inside look of life abroad by blogging, which by the way is excellent and very à la mode, I thought why not give it another shot. Hence 'another one bites the dust'.

Note to self: Must make time to blog.

Dedications:

• To my sister, Ivy, who's a walking dictionary/thesaurus, who ought to be an English Professor for obvious reasons but instead chose to be an accountant (an excellent one at that) and whom I've appointed to be my blog Editor and who helped me with my first title blog!

• To my best pal, Weng Po @ Candice, whom I consider to be part of my family, has inspired and continues to inspire me to blog with her own blogs.

• To my good friend, Hardip, who introduced me to the whole concept of blogging even before anyone knew how!

Thank you!