Syariah Court, What is Your Priority?

Picture taken from TheStar.com.my

Divorce, child support and alimony are the 3 most reasons why couple go back and forth in the court. Being a Muslim in a muslim country such as Malaysia, all things related to the religion are handled by the Syariah Court. Islam is a fair religion and does not discriminate women. That, I truly believe. Unfortunately, most (not all but most, ok?) of the people running these religious agencies are nowhere close in being fair to women. Especially divorced women, be it with or without children.

I am sure that I am not alone in thinking this way. How many men that you know of personally, after they are divorced, actually pay child support voluntarily? And why should anybody have to go to court to get child support on the first place anyway? Are they not your children too? The ones getting divorced are you and your spouse. Not you and the children. How could anybody treat their own children that way? And yet they call themselves a muslim! If any of you readers fall into that category, I have this to say to you, "SHAME ON YOU!".

The scenario is of course different for non muslims especially in non muslim countries where it is the women who have the upper hands and they would use the children to get back to their exes by giving minimum or no access at all to the children. Again, not all and sometimes the situations are such that minimum or none at all are for the best interest of the children. (Think of abusive, drugs or alcohol addicts). But that is another story for another day.

Today it is all about the picture above of a woman who had gone to the syariah court to fight for the child support that the ex husband had conveniently failed to pay totalling to RM50,000 (USD14,500). Sounds like a normal case huh? Well, it should be except that instead of being angry that child support was not paid to her, the judge was angry at how she was dressed! This is what the judge said to her,

“You are not here for a photo shoot. Wearing a vest over a blouse makes it look as if you are going for war,” said Saarani (the judge), before telling Shafnie’s lawyer to advise her client on the dress code for appearing in a Syariah court.

What. The. Hell.

Looking for something, Mate?

I can't help laughing when I read this news on thestar.com.my this morning. I am just going to copy and paste the whole story and let you read and judge it for yourself.

KEMAMAN: A burglar entered a house-turned-grocery shop, thinking he was in for a killing. He nearly got himself killed instead.

The owner, who was away to celebrate Hari Raya Haji returned home yesterday morning to find the burglar trapped in the house for 72 hours without food and water.

The intruder was fatigued and dehydrated when the owner and his wife returned to the shop in Kampung Binjai from their hometown in Kota Baru.

The couple, in their early 50s, found the burglar lying in a room, clasping his hands in an apologetic gesture for his wrongdoing.

The owner, instead of calling the police, decided to call an ambulance to rush the burglar to the nearest hospital.

When interrogated later, the 36-year-old burglar told investigating officers that he had sneaked into the house after realising the owner was out.

The burglar, who entered via the back door, claimed that he was blinded once he was inside and felt like he was in a cave.

“Each time I wanted to flee, I felt a ‘supernatural figure’ shoving me to the ground,’’ he told police.

He claimed this was his first time experiencing such trauma during a break-in.

The burglar had no choice but to stay put in the room for three days as his shouts for help were in vain.

Kemaman Deputy police chief Deputy Supt Abdul Marlik Hakim Johar said the couple lodged a police report on the same day.

He said the burglar was warded at the Kemaman Hospital and his condition is stable.

Twilight The Movie

I have never heard of Twilight until the movie. Then I was told that it was based on the Twilight series of books. And being a vampire buff myself (vampire, not goth!), I knew that I had to watch the movie. At first I was skeptical since the movie is basically a teenager's story. You know, the ones where the main characters are all teenagers? My mind was already thinking of BH90210, The Hill and etc etc. And I shuddered.

So last Saturday, we went down to The Block to watch the movie. For a 11.20am show, the theater room was pretty pack. The previews before the movie were not that great and I was already thinking, "Oh my. This is going to be one long boring movie!". Then the movie started. And I was hooked. Straight from the beginning to the end.

This is a really good love-story movie but without the unnecessary distractions like excessively sex-scenes or excessively gory scenes with excessively high-school dramas. Also the most important part in any love-story is there should be chemistry between the main characters. And boy, do these 2 have it or what! They really have good chemistry in the movie that you feel for and drawn to them.

I must say that this is a really good family movie. The boys/men might not be into this kind of movie since it is after all, a love-story but do watch this with your girlfriends and/or daughters/nieces. You won't need to cover their eyes or ears since like I said earlier, there is no sex/gory scenes. As for me, now I am going to try find all the books. I am THAT hooked!

p.s Did I mentioned that I even like the songs in the movies?

p.p.s Did you also know that there are gonna be sequels?

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thank you for the thanksgiving wishes ans sorry for not writing sooner. As usual, I stuffed myself silly on Thanksgiving especially since I did not cook anything much. We practically bought almost everything except for these Cheesy Garlic Biscuit that I partly made.

This is part of the crowd camping outside BestBuy in Huntington Beach.
They opened at 4 or 6am on Friday and this picture was taken at 8.45pm on Thursday.
Yup, people here go crazy especially for electrical items and toys.

A tall Xmas tree at Citadel Outlet in L.A.

Citadel Outlet was opened from 11pm Thursday until 10pm Friday. This was taken around 4.30pm just before we left. We were there since 12pm.
I even met a Malaysian guy with his son at the foodcourt!

Obviously I didn't buy much at the outlet. I only go to the stores that didn't have
any long Q at the cashiers. I'm still thinking about the 4 dresses that
I had to put back since the line was so long. :(

Gas Price and Ringgit Malaysia Update

As of Sunday night, the gas price in our area has officially dropped to below 2/gallon. 1.999/gallon to be exact. It is just so unbelievable yet so very true. The last time gas price was below 2/gallon was like in early 2005. Although we in SoCal have only started to get these below2/gallon gas price, I know for a fact that Cath in Virginia has been enjoying it for a while now. :P With the gas price going down fast, we only fill up our car $20/week which will give us slightly less than 3/4 tank and would last us for up to 9days if we stay local that is.

Ringgit Malaysia on the other hand is now at RM3.622 to USD1. That's 10cent down since the last time I made an update which was only a few weeks ago. I heard that it will be around RM3.80 for every dollar by year end. Who knows? We will just have to wait and see.

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On another note, it is Thanksgiving here in the US on Thursday and Friday will be the famous shopping day of the year, Black Friday. Michael has already applied for an extra day off for Friday. We have yet to decide what we are going to do for Thanksgiving but I do plan to go visit the malls and factory outlets on Black Friday. I need to get a new pair of sneakers to replace my 5year old that I have been using. I have never gone this long with any sneakers before. I guess when you are a fulltime housewife and not a member of any gym club, the need to own different kind of sneakers for different kind of activities just disappeared.

Iran and Plastic Surgery

Yesterday on Oprah the topic was 'Beauty' or what people around the globe do in the name of beauty. Some things are pretty well-known facts like in Brazil, where it is normal for a girl to spend half of their salary on beauty products or regime each month. Or that it is hard to find big sizes in Paris or how bengkung or body wrap is used by women who just gave birth to make the tummy go flat faster. Yeap, we have heard of those don't we?

But when we talk about Iran or specifically the Iranian women and their beauty regime, would you have thought that it would involve plastic surgery? Yes my friends. You heard me right. Plastic surgery. Nose job! It is apparently very normal for them and they don't even hide the fact that they just had a nose job. Wearing a band-aid on their nose is something that is done with pride. They wear hijab and band-aid on their nose and nobody gives a hoot. Some of them would actually wear the band-aid for 2 freaking years just to show people that she just had a nose job while others even if they have not had a nose job would still put the band-aid to make people think that they did. That is how proud they are when they had it done. What do you think the alim ulama in Malaysia would say about this fact?

Watching the show really makes me wonder about nose jobs or any other type of plastic surgeries like breasts augmentation, tummy tuck and so on. But 1 thing for sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some like it skinny, others like it big. Some like it straight, others like it curl. And it will forever be that we are never satisfied with what we have. We always think that the grass is greener on the other side. Or is it? What do you think?

California Fire

I woke up on Friday morning to the news about fire in Southern California that started the night before. It was kinda weird since last week was rather a cold week. Of course by late Thursday mother nature decided to move in a 180degree turn and give us hot weather and high wind which is a lethal formula for brush fire.

On Saturday we decided to watch the new James Bond movie at The Block in the city of Orange. We can already smell the smoke even before we got on to the 22 freeway. The sky on our side was blue but followed by a very dark cloud no thanks to the wind that blew the smoke from the fire area. The sun was red and the air smells of smoke. We arrived at the mall at noon and surprisingly it was easy to find a parking. Pretty unknown of at The Block especially on weekend.

The fire has so far burned hundreds of homes from multi-million dollar mansions to mobile homes. The only good thing is that so far there is no death. But I really feel for those mobile homes owners. Where are they going to live? Winter is approaching and although winter here is pretty mild, it still gets very cold at night. Where are they going to go when there is no home to go back to? My prayer goes to all of them.

Dinner and Cake

Steak with Mushroom Sauce on a bed of Fettucine

His dinner. I tried it and hated it.

Chicken Marsala with Rice
My dinner. Tried it and double-hated it.
The worst food I have ever had.
And it was me who decided to try the restaurant! :P

The Huge Birthday Cake that My Baby surprised me with!
He chose it because he said that is the prettiest cake of all.
How sweet is that? *wink*
And I love the colourful candles which he himself selected and put on the cake.
Can you count how many candles are there?

Pretending to blow the candles.

Gas Price and Exchange Rate

Gosh! It has been a while since I updated on those 2 taboo subjects. But this time at least there is a positive result. At least for ur living in the US. As you all know, the gas price is gradually coming down. It was peaked at close to usd5/gallon. As of yesterday morning, Saturday Nov 1, it costs us 2.70/gallon although at noon when we were driving back fr the asian supermarket it went down to 2.66/gallon. Oh well, cant complaint too much. After suffering from a very high cost of gas the last 4-8 months, I am just so relieved that it is now back to what it was a year ago. Now, if only they bring down the price of goods as well. Everything went up when the gas price was up but when the price is down, nobody seems to want to bring down the price of goods.

Now, on the exchange rate, Ringgit Malaysia(RM) to USD it is not looking to good for Malaysian. Since Friday Oct 31, my exchange rate ticker on my notebook says that it is USD1 = RM3.553. It is of course good for Malaysian sending back money to home or if you are planning to go back and spend some moolah there. (Cath, Gert & Jannie, aren't you guys going back next year?)

Simply Stunning Sky

This is what I woke up to a couple of weeks ago. You know I am not in a habit of taking pictures but that morning I knew I had to go back in and grab my camera.

The sky was so clear and blue.

The clouds pink.

And orangey.

Simply stunning morning. Dont you agree?

Happy Deepavali

Monday is Deepavali. I am taking this opportunity to wish all my Hindu friends and readers a Happy Deepavali.

Do think of me whe you're having your open houses ya?

Our Raya Open House

A Game

It is Columbus Day today so some people got the day off. Like my Baby. hehe. But how did we spent the day? Well, besides both being on the computer, we didnt do anything much. And we also did the laundry.

This is what I made for my breakfast. Prawn fritters. Finely chopped prawn mix into the batter and with a whole prawn on top. Double prawn, prawn fritters! Click SaltNTurmeric to see the rest of the pictures.

This however, is the how-to-con-your-big-baby-into-eating-seafood prawn fritters that I made for who else but my big Baby a.ka. Michael. Although he ate most of them (as usual, I made a lot), this poor fella however was put on my plate. Do you know why?

Medical Check Up - Update

Hi all, thanks for all the kind words and prayers that were sent my way. Just so you all know, it was not a routine check up. I am now waiting for the biopsy tests result that I should get sometime in 2 weeks time. Arrgh! I hate waiting.

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A short note.

After 2 years in a row of regular papsmear result but found positive for something else, today I am going for a colposcopy test. What that is you ask? Well, it is a more in-depth test than papsmear. And that's all I can tell you. I am one of those people who do not like TMI (that's Too Much Information, if you dont already know it). Although I bet I would change if the result is anything but clear.

So wish me luck y'all.

Malaysian Raya Open House 2008

Warning. A lot of pictures!

Eid Mubarak

To all my Muslim friends and readers,

I would like to wish everybody

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri / Eid Mubarak.

Kalau ada terkasar bahasa, harap maafkan.

Bila makan ketupat, rendang, kuah kacang dan lain lain,

makanlah untuk saya juga ye?

And please, please, please drive safely.

Lepak

Ducks enter-frame our shadow pic :P

A lady and her son posing for the camera

before they were chased by the ducks and geese!

whatcha lookin at?

My Baby

in a different setting

:P