Blog Ethics Lessons from Kindergarten

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my first march-article on the super-cool website for malaysian moms, mombloggersplanet for working moms, work-from-home moms and moms like me who stays at home while tryin to stay sane managing home and the screamin kiddos! hihi.

this time i list out the simplest, most logical, straight-forward rules that our kids learn while in kindergarten, and apply it to blogging. because you know, sometimes the simplest rule is the one that we forgot to remember!

click on picture to read further!

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did you know i was in early child education? loving it! i've lectured 20 year-olds before, and then i've endured 5 year-olds. i must say i enjoyed the little kiddos more!

sigh. i really miss my job. wanna know what i did before leaving for dubai? click here.

Happy Birthday to a Waffle-Freakazoid

we are five sharifuddin girls. 4 syazrins and a nazirah. and today is the birthday of the 4th one in the family. happy birthday, syida!

syida and her comelest nephews khaleef and kahfi @ JBR

just finished her masters, starting a high-flying job, and enjoying life. there are lots more to come, sis!

we bonded in many ways than one:

• growing up, we share a room in abah's ipoh house
• we both do a little art - drawing mostly
• we both read pretty much the same genre - from the likes of stephen king and roald dahl
• we both enjoy pretty much the same movies - or if not, she 'gets' what i like and doesn't mind indulging in it
• when i read her school essays/blog i can't help seeing some similarities in her style of writing - the same wit and charm (cewah nak kata yg i pun charming la tu hahahahahhahaaaa..)
  

...if only we share the same mass of body fat!

latest picture : azi's birthday treat for syida yesterday - makan nasi mandi @ al-rawsya, ampang

happy birthday again, dear syida! love you lots and missing our chitchats!

What's For Breakfast?

"breakfast like a king,
lunch like a prince,
dine like a pauper."

so what's for breakfast in the kay home?

sometimes toasted bread, if there's leftover rice from the night before - nasi goreng, cucur udang when there's prawn in the fridge, fried meehoon when i'm feeling rajin, and most of the time (because it's the easiest to prepare!) CEREAL!

my favorite cereal; and khaleef with his favorite cereal

khaleef loves his cereals. from the choclatey 'cocoa puffs' to the boring sugar cornflakes. any cereal. his favorite is the 'froot loops'. he eats 'em with milk, and he calls it 'soup'. weird.

khaleef & kahfi punya

and it's becoming kahfi's favorite too. i could dump a fistfull of 'froot loops' in one of those little colorful ikea bowls, and kahfi would sit quietly stuffing his mouth with those green-orange-pink loopy cereal, long enough for me to realize how silent the house is!

what's their mak's favorite?

mak punya

i love cornflakes. i love 'honey stars'. however my current craze is 'honey waffles'. yes, i DO judge cereals by its cover so yes, the oh-so-adorable cookie-monster-lookalike captured my attention first, made me wanna try this cereal.

and it's so nice! some cereal with the word 'honey' in it can be too sweet, but 'honey waffles' are just nice for my tastebud. crispy, crunchy, sweet and super-delicious!

how about bapaknye?


nestle's 'fitness honey & almond' is his favorite! i love this one too but it's just funny and silly to eat something that has a yellow cereal-monster on the box, instead of a spoon! hihi.

so our home now has 3 different cereal boxes at any given time. perhaps when kahfi is older and gets more opiniated, he'd have his own personal cereal!

oh, and the back of the box? i actually take that into consideration when trying out new cereals! khaleef's 'froot loop' has 'look for hidden pictures' at the back and he loves trying to locate the froot loops everytime he eats. mine has games, facts and jokes about honey which are really fun to read, while mr. khairul's cereal lists out the nutritional values and such.

hey, it's really important okay to have something fun to do or read while you're having your favorite cereal! hihi.

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did you know that last 7th march was US's national cereal day? heck, they've got a national day for all sorts of things kan? imagine if malaysia has 'national nasi lemak' day - cool!

oh well, enjoy this bit on some cereal fun facts!

• cereal was invented when colonial housewives started serving up popcorn with sugar and cream for breakfast!
• the word cereal comes from 'cerealia', the name of ancient roman ceremonies that honored 'ceres', the goddess of grain.
• there are 2.7 billion packages of cereal sold every year – that’s enough boxes to wrap around the earth thirteen times - woah!
• john harvey kellogg invented corn flakes in 1906 (gile lama dah!) by accident while cooking some wheat for a type of granola. the wheat had gone stale so harvey and his brother forced the wheat through rollers. a thin flake emerged and they kept experimenting and developing the flaking process.
• astronauts from apollo 11 boosted their brain power while in space with a cereal breakfast. the cereal was mixed with fruit and pressed into cubes since the lack of gravity kept the astronauts from pouring it into a bowl with milk.
• breakfast cereal is the third most popular item sold in grocery stores after carbonated beverages and milk.

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thanks to our dubai friend kak linda, we have another hot drinks added to our breakfast beverage - horlicks! lama gile tak minum horlicks! though i'm not a hot-drink person, having horlicks after soooo long is kinda nice. thanks kak linda!

one morning i added milo WITH horlicks. saje ngade. sedap pulak! try it!

Misty Morning in Dubai

tuesday morning, and this was the view from our apartment. subuh lagi la tak nampak apa. this morning was also a repeat view, and it was worse because i can't even see the apartment opposite ours!

fog? mist? call it what you want but it blanketed the rest of dubai it seemed, 'chopping off' dubai's skyline!

the two apartment buildings in my view was completely invisible during the early morning. i asked mr. khairul to drive to work later since it didn't look advisable to operate a moving vehicle with this kind of visibility!

gulfnews in fact reported several accidents involving one dead, because of poor visibility driving in the fog. full detail here.

7.40am

8.30am

by later that morning, the view got better and mr. khairul went off to work. however, believe it or not, the fog macam main aci nyorok because minutes after mr. khairul left, the fog came back and settled on the apartments to shield it from my view again!

here are two reports from gulfnews about the early morning fog, and the fact that it'll probably be like this till the weekends! click here and here.

Mr. Khairul Enters Sumo!

before you guys jumped to any conclusion - mr. khairul entered the 'sumo' japanese restaurant, okay. hihi. not the sport!

the happy birthday boy

i don't like japanese food, so we eat japanese food only once a year - on mr. khairul's birthday! coz he's the unagi-and-prawn-tempura-nut between us. hihi.

this time, after much googling and asking around, we settled on 'sumo sushi & bento' japanese restaurant in media city, dubai to have a birthday dinner.

dubai media city, a commercial area next to dubai marina

the place was hard to find, lemme tell you that. mr. khairul actually had to call the restaurant to ask for directions.

media city dubai ni besar jugak ye. we were supposed to look for the 'sun' building, find a narrow lane that leads to a parking lot, where 'building 10' was. there were 2-3 makan places on the ground floor of the building but it was unusually dark that we would've thought they're having an earth hour session or electricity-saving campaign!

there was a pizza place, a small conveniece store, a mid-east restaurant and at a dark corner, we finally spotted 'sumo' restaurant. there were candles set on the tables outside - but instead of evoking a romantic candle-light dining scene, it looked rather like sumo lost its electricity and made up for it with what little candles they have left!

gelap gile! bukan gelap romantic ni!

the counter with the salmon and octopus

there wasn't even a huge lighted blue-white SUMO signage upfront - the only way we knew it was the right place was a small signage on its front door. the place looked so simple, so tersorok and definitely 'off the beaten path'!

because eating outside might impare our sights rather than provide a romantic experience, we opted eating inside.

upon entering we were greeted with friendly smiles and a counter where fresh salmon and what looked like a giant octopus were on display. there were also a couple of japanese-looking chefs (japanese 'looking' pasal actually semuanya filipinos! hihi) slicing and dicing behind the counter, and another fixing a tepanyaki meal on a flat grill.

before we even took our seats, i realized that you don't come to 'sumo' restaurant to bask in a japanese ambiance. look at the picture above! it could be any restaurant - with its very minimal wall decor, boring dark brown leather seats and wooden flooring.

boring, yes - but wait - overall it offered a comfortable setting for us with little kiddos. the seats are big and comfy, ample space to 'park' a stroller and the spacing between tables provided the privacy we'd like.

oh, and to top the non-japanese ambiance - the background music was an arabic song! lawak betul when we first noticed. hey, i know we're in the negara padang pasir but a japanese song wouldn't hurt to create a feel! hihi.

ok now, what about the food, then?


it's called 'sumo sushi & bento' restaurant. naturally that's what it has in its menu. unlike the wall decor, its menu has all the typical japanese cuisine - tempura, teppanyaki, sashimi, teriyaki and miso soup. salmon, eel and such.

most are served as bento - a japanese style lunch-boxes. it's like a complete meal - rice, meat, vegetable and soup.

i applaud the menu for including very beautiful pictures of its meals! hopefully it matches the actual taste!

mr. khairul's tempura bento

mr. khairul the eel-lover ordered 'caterpillar' - a small plate of freshwater 'unagi' with avocado. and for his main meal, the highly recommended 'tempura bento' comprised of shrimp and vegetable tempura and teriyaki chicken served with white rice.

everything looked fresh and appetizing!

mr. khairul's 'unagi' meal

i don't eat salmon, sushi and definitely not eel! so i scanned the menu quickly for any chicken meal and found 'chicken katsu bento' - sliced breaded chicken served on top of japanese rice with beans and carrots. it came together with sumo's special katsu sauce.

the chicken hot and very crispy, the vegetable fresh but the 'special' katsu sauce tasted just like bbq sauce which i don't really like.

my chicky meal!

looking at our meals, one thing is certain even before we put a bite in our mouth - the portion is huge! with the price of the bento, and this portion - it's worth every dirham spent!

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we also ordered miso soup for khaleef as he's a soupy-freak. and he just shared huge spoonfuls of rice and slices of breaded chicken with me.

oh, speaking of soup, that's one disappointment i'd like to add - the bento did not come with a complimentary miso soup like some other japanese restaurants we've been to. it's like when we eat nasi ayam la kan? sup tu mesti la sekali kan?

so we had to order two extra bowls of miso soup for the birthday boy and his son.


how bout his other son? safe and tucked away in la-la land...

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ok, really now - how was the food?

seriously, it's all good except for the rice! the rice was slightly hard, when we expect japanese steamed rice to be on the sticky side. however, the miso soup and sauces improved the texture and by the second suap, we didn't even bother with the rice because the other stuff was so yummy.

the rice wasn't that bad, it's just that it would've been perfect if it was soft and sticky like it should.

mr. khairul loved his dish - the eel fresh, the teriyaki chicken juicy and well-marinated while the shrimp tempura crispy and delicious. and he also 'choked' on the very-stinging wasabi, which, according to him means the wasabi was super-fresh. he said he had eaten in some japanese restaurants where the wasabi didn't even give the spicy taste that it's supposed to.

* wasabi is a leafy plant with thick green roots (like cabbages and horseradish), finely grated and turned into a green-colored paste. it's a kind off 'japanese mustard' which is spicy and has a very strong taste. eaten with sushi and sashimi, it's usually mixed with soy sauce as a dip.

i enjoyed my order as well - the breaded chicken well-fried, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside! a dip of my breaded chicken into mr. khairul's teriyaki sauce - perfection!

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khaleef dan octopus

overall, i'd say it's really worth the price. cheaper than most, especially being so near our place (because if you want cheap japanese food you can get many from areas like deira and bur dubai which is like 40-45 minutes away) with good food and fast, friendly service.

'sumo' is the place to go if you want affordable good japanese food but don't mind not having the japanese ambiance and feel. well, kitorang tak kisah. the most important thing is the food is good, and the place is clean.

visit its official website for menu, delivery contacts and other information!

Happy 31st Birthday, Honey!

it seems only yesterday i crafted a poem in celebration of mr. khairul's 30th birthday in this posting. and here i am again, penning yet another dedicational rhyming words to my guy, on his special day of turning THIRTY-ONE!

happy birthday, honey bunches. enjoy your day!

khairul : 30 years + 1
by : loving wife, syigim

thirty years after your birthdate
plus one year in addition
a special poem to my soulmate
from me, a heart rendition

thirty years of ups and downs
plus one year to that
you can be serious, you can be a clown
you walk your talk, you know where it's at

thirty years of joy and tears
plus one year additionally
challenges, obstacles, hope and fears
you conquered all, be proud be jolly!

thirty years of life
plus one year more
with a hot gorgeous wife
and two boys you adore

thirty years of hits and misses
plus one year further
i'll always have hugs and a whole lotta kisses
to a great guy, sweet darling and wonderful father!

thirty years of glory
plus one year too
you've got an amazing history
by simply just being YOU!

happy 31st birthday, honey - with great love from your wife, and your sons khaleef and kahfi.

How to Eat Honey from the Comb?

"honey, mane you dapat honey ni?"

a yemeni businessman, whom mr. khairul got to know on his visit to the country recently was in town. he invited mr. khairul to join him and some other business peeps for a casual dinner.

...and he came back with a metal container full of chunks of honeycomb, courtesy of the yemeni dude!


klaka.

i stared at it for the longest time. this is the closest i've gotten to an actual honeycomb. to wonder about the honey-production, to imagine the bees in the hives, to admire the beautiful hexagonal structure of the comb - and i stared and stared.

how the black and yellow insects can instinctively build cells of such geometric perfection - what a magnificent creature, bees are! no wonder there's a whole surah in the al-Quran dedicated to the bees - surah al-nahl.

oh, also, i stared too long that i feel like there were actual bees still hovering inside the confines of the comb! hihi. bzzz bzzz.


the honey that is still in the comb is said to be the most natural form of the honey. not processed, not heated, not nothing. pure, and natural.

i asked, "so, camne nak makan?" very, very curious.

and mr. khairul related the yemeni dude's instructions - just grab a small spoonful, mix with water, and drink. okay. seemed easy enough.


we opened the container and poked.

from outside, i thought honeycombs are soft, gooey and spongy, and you have to squeeze the honey out of it. but it was actually quite hard! when i touched the comb, i can feel the stickiness of the honey inside the hard hexagonal quarters.

mr. khairul grabbed a small spoon, and took a bit. he wondered whether it's safe to eat the honeycomb itself without mixing it with water. i was sceptical. pure sangat nanti sakit perut kot. orang yemeni tu suruh mix, mix la!

but you know how men are. and so mr. khairul tried a bit straight from the honeycomb, to the spoon and into his mouth. he chewed and chewed, and finally said macam chewing gum! after he sucked all the sweet honey from the comb, what's left is a gum-like texture that is chewy.


is it really safe to eat it just like that? and what happens after you finish sucking in all the honey? can you eat the comb itself, or must you spit it out?

with the magic of google, i found out that it's perfectly alright to swallow the honeycomb - honey, comb and all. in fact there are a few ways you can eat honey that's still in the comb, from ehow :

chew it

1. bite off a piece of the honeycomb.
2. chew it like gum, sucking out the honey as you chew.
3. spit out the wax comb or swallow it.
4. it is not harmful to consume it.

spread it like a condiment

1. spread the comb, wax and all, on a buttered cracker, hot toast or english muffin.
2. let it sit for a few seconds so the wax melts a little and the honey settles into the bread.
3. eat it with your fingers.

have it for an appetizer or dessert

1. cut a piece of comb.
2. place on top of a slice of cheese, such as sharp cheddar, or on top of a piece of fresh fruit.
3. eat it as an appetizer or dessert.

i'm gonna try the toast bit! nyum!


thanks honey, for bringing me into this new experience of trying out honey straight from the comb! it's certainly priceless, and you - you're the sweetest!