judging people

been quite sometime since i wrote in this blog. today met two ladies call the Miss W and Miss L. Both have different personality and characters. well each individual obviously will have different behaviors. who am i to judge others. but me being me, cant help in judging other peoples character. I knew W much earlier than L but when we met I'm much more comfortable with L.

W from the start is a bit sensitive, reserved not talking much, always sees the negative side of things first, so conscious about what you say. i like to provoke as usual but for W its mocking.

L on the other hand is more jovial, friendlier, easy to communicate, asking and enquiring all kind of things, seems to know lots of stuff.

surely if i ask which person you like to go out and have dinner...you will choose L.

but is it the right thing to do... make judgement about others. some say what you see at the outskirt is not the true picture of a person.

whatever others say, u know better......

I didnt write for quite sometimes nad have been bz with work. Start work at 8.30 am and sometimes go home at 12 am. People say private sector staff work hard and late hours. Its true in the 60s and 70s but not in the 20th century. Public sector staff too work late hours and sometimes even much more and later than the private sector. However, in terms of pay, it doesnt change much. Public sector earn much less than the private sector employees.

I have too many official meetings to attend. I cannot mention the detail of those meetings but enough to say important meetings chaired by important ppl. so i have only evenings and nights to arrange for my own internal meetings. Sometimes private sector companies grumble why this guy conduct meetings at night. Inefficient and unproductive are among some of the comments. But they dont know my constraints. They will say night time ppl are tired already and cant concentrate. May be its true in their case but as for me i'm as fresh as when we start meeting early morning.

Currently, my junior officers in Tax Division are doing their individual presentations. I have done this with economic and finance divisions. later I will do the same with Budget division. Officers may think this is another wasting things to do. for me this has great impact. He enhances skill, knowledge, improves English proficiency and builds up the confidence level of individuals. I hope these officers look at things differently. Later, i intend to conduct Blue Ocean Strategy presentations by these four divisions.

Sophie........who is she?

About five months ago, one morning about 8.15 am, Abu (not real name) came with a lady (sophie) to make a presentation. I was busy and was preparing myself for the 9 o'clock meeting. So didnt pay much attention, moreover they just came without any appointment. I know Abu so i had to just to what sophie had to present. I half-heartedly listened to what she had to present. But that evening, when i was abit free, i just flipped through to see what the proposal si all about. Sophie apparently is heading an NGO group called Kakiseni and they propose to do an out reach program consisting of theatres, shot plays, music, dances, poem readings, paintings and photo exhibitions and so on in conjuction with the 100 Years Women Day celebration. They do these programs in open public space or restaurants. Its free for public. It sounds fantastic and meets my quest to reach the public and change their mindset. We can use arts and performance to reach the grass root and tell them the good things about life and be a good and responsible citizen. Immediately, i texted a message to my friend Dr Noorul Sec Gen of Min Of women about this proposal. She was in US at that time bit she replied would like to know more about the proposal. I told her we can call sophie to make a presentation.

To cut the long story shot, we agreed to provide the allocation requested and seek the commitment from Sophie and geng. The minister sharizat agreed to officiate the launching of this program which runs for more than 50 days. I went for the closing ceremony at Pavilion on 5/5/2011. The closing was with a photo exhibition session. Personally, i felt that sophie more than succeeded in what she had originally proposed. Thumbs up for her.

To celebrate sophie belanja me makan at Garibaldi an italian restaurant. nice ambience and good food. I made appointment to meet sophie at 7.30 pm but due traffic jam she came at close to 8pm. But as usual without realiizing hows fast time pastby we left the restaurant past midnight.

While talking to sophie, i discover her to be very independent, confident, open, friendly, versatile and so on and on. I can keep on tell nice things about her. she is married with 3 kids. we need more of these kind of individuals both men and women in malaysia to carried out effective programs on voluntary basis to reach out to the masses.

Congrats and respect u...Sophie

Do we need to be defensive

Most of the time people criticize us and we tend to deny as well as say we are on the right path. We will give 1001 reasons to explain that we doing the right things and we are basically right and no point arguing. Whoever says constructive things and are telling the truth, we presume that they are telling lies or their facts are not accurate. Why should we be so defensive and this infact obviously shows our weaknesses that we are in wrong. If nobody says anything and try to investigate the accusations then we are doing the right thing. If we are doing the right things, we shouldnt be afraid when a third party is evaluating our case.

But often not than most of the time individuals and companies or even politicians will argue against a third party report. There is a saying before pointing fingers at others, point your fingers to your face.

The question do we need to be so defensive when people say something us or the way we are doing things. not everybody is not sincere in this world. There are still who are sincere in making comments. Its on us to investigate and make wise judgement. Always suspecting others so we feel insecure. So try to be natural and listen positively to what they have to say about us. Negative means we need to improve ourselves and positive means we need to continuously work hard.

Istanbullllllllll......facinatinggggg

Last week i came back from Istanbul. To share with you some of the facinating attractive spots in istanbul especially the mosques. In istanbul, between every 200 to 400 metres you can find a new or ancient mosques. At one glance you may think its one of the most religious city in the world apart from Jeddah, Mecca and Madinah but its one of the most secularist city. Night life is so happening with pubs and belly dancing clubs. It goes that once upon a time, the sultan of turkey brought women slaves from all parts of the world and let them perfom dances and make them as his wife or mistress. That's why you can find all kind mix blood citizen of turkey and they have among the prettiest ladies in the world.

Attached are some beatiful spots in Istanbul.







Sultan Ahmed or the Blue Mosque



The greatest Church which is a mosque now : Ayasofia




Grand Bazaar: To buy souvenirs, jewellery, lather goods, carpets and scarfs



Spice Bazaar: To buy turkish delights and other delicacies




One of the scenic bridges


if you have time do visit Istanbul. One of the oldest civilization. I visited Istanbul on official duty to learn more about their Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) under construction. Their MRT is even crossing the sea through underground tunnel i.e. 60 metres below sea level (the deepest tunnel in the world. while digging to construct one of the stations they discovered artifacts dating way back before christ. Among other things discovered include bowls and potteries, human and animal bones, jewelleries, coins and ships.

We think we are ahead of others

i didnt write quite sometimes. I was so busy with work. I have been travelling alot. twice to jakarta, Bali, manila and just recenlty came back from ankara and Istanbul. I thought i need to write something. Not the beauty of other countries but what's going on there in other parts of the world.

We think we are ahead of others. Doing all the traansformation programmes to attract both foreign investment and domestic investment too. In fact other countries are doing the same thing but greater success. The tourism ministry publishes figures showing the increasing tourists arrivals but tourists in other part cant be compared they are way way ahead. they have all kind of civilization and new attractive spots to lure torrists from all around the world.

Manpower, we at once were superior in terms of skill and language proficiency but its deteriorating and slowly getting worst. Not only that the salary is so low compared to other countries in the same rank. The rules and regulations need to be further simplified and liberalized.

The authorities know about all these problems but how soon we are going to address them especially measures to uplift skills dan wage level. there are other structural issues that needs to be addressed immediately not private inevstment alone can solve these problems, these are fundamental issues.

Countries who are behind us like Korea and china has overtaken us but up and coimng countries like vietnam, indonesia, philippines and india, if we dont act fast these countries are going to leave us far, far away.

We will forever be trapped in the middle income group. So put our act together to address fundamental issues. Decision makers should open your eyes and dont be complacent, civil servants should change their mind set and private move up to the challenges to survive in this competitive global environment.

Kemewahan atau Kesenangan

Manusia selalu kata mereka hanya ingin hidup senang tanpa kesusahan dalam perjalanan kehidupan ini. Tetapi manusia sering lupa dalam mencari kesenangan akan mengejar kemewahan dan seterusnya kekayaan.

Kenapa aku pilih topik ini kali ini. Manusia dewasa ini menyimpang dari matlamat hidupnya. Apa yang kita cari dalam kehidupan seharian. Kita mahu hidup senang, cukup makan, ada tempat tinggal..punyai keluarga dan dapat menampung keperluan keluarga termasuk membesarkan anak2 dan hingga mereka kahwin dan mempunyai keluarga sendiri, dan akhirnya kita mati. Dalam perjalanan hidup yang singkat ini, kita juga mesti taat kepada ajaran agama dengan melaksanakan tanggungjawab terhadap allah dan disamping itu, menjalankan kehidupan seharian mengikut lunas-lunas yang ditetapkan oleh agama. adakah setiap kita mengikuti landasan ini...setiap hari sekurang-kurangnya seminit pun cukup merenung sebelum membuat sesuatu adakah kita dilandasan yang betul.

Aku menulis ini bukan nak kata aku 100 percent sempurna. Aku pun ingin mengikut landasan yang betul.

Ramai yang ku temui dalam perjalanan ini...samada di office, di FB, di shopping mall dan di mana2 aje, manusia kejar kekayaan. Gadis yang mahu kemewahan lalu sangat materialistik. Bila bicara aje, soalan pertama akan ditanya kerja apa, bisness apa, pakai kereta apa, tinggal dikawasan mana - banglo kah. Mereka tidak akan tanya sama ada kita sihat, sudah ke mekah atau tentang keluarga kita.

Kemana semua kekayaan kita akan pergi. Adakah akan ikut kita ke dalam tanah. Bukan maksud ku supaya kita tidak berusaha mencari harta dunia tapi harus berlandaskan cara yang betul mengikut ajaran agama. Kalau kamu kaya raya, billionaire, syukur alhamudillah. Itu pun aku hormat kamu kerana usaha gigih mencari harta seimbang dengan lunas2 agama. Banyak sudah ku tulis malam ini, baikku berhenti disini.


DOAKU
Aku doa padamu Ya Allah yang maha Esa lindungi semua insan yang mengenaliku dan seluruh umat didunia ini, tempatkan kedudukan yang tinggi kepada Nabi Mohammad dan sahabat2, juga ampun dosa kawan2 yang telah pergi dulu. Bagi ibubapaku dan abangku yang bukan beragama Islam dan sudah tiada dibumi ini aku pohon keampunanMu Ya Allah.

Ya Allah ambillah segalanya dariku, tetapi jangan ambil Islam dariku yang engkau telah berikan.