Annual Dinner

The OLD GIRLS Strike Back


My dearest gang,

The Old Girls Strike back! What's that?

Sequel to the Star Wars movie?

No lah...this was one of the highlights of our recent TKCOGA dinner performances by our own Madam President, K Fauzah, our Madam Vice President, K Akmar and the gang all in their glory of song and dance and frolic.



Held at the Shangri-la Grand Ballroom on the 20th May 2006, the night started with arrival of OGs and friends of OGs and vips of course. Our guests of honour were YAB, Dato Seri Najib Razak (Deputy Prime Minister), His Royal Highness Duli Yang Teramat Mulia Raja Nazrin Sultan Azlan Shah (Regent of Perak), YAB Dato Seri Utama Mohamad Harun (MB of N Sembilan), Dato’ Shahrizat Jalil (Minister of Women and Family Development).


Our President, Kak Fauzah (Puan Sri Fauzah Darus) started the night with her Presidential speech, followed by K Akmar (Puan Sri Akmar Rashid), as organising chairperson and of course our patron K Rosmah (Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor).



The theme this year being 'Reach Out', carries deep meaning and responsibility to our alumni. We are always interested to give back to society in any way we can. On this note, this year we have launched 'HANI', led by Dr Humairah Samad. Hani is Health Awareness Network Initiatives, where it is our aim to hold forums to further educate both our alumnae and the public on current health issues. After all our TKCOGA is a treasure trove of professionals across the board, be it medical, engineering, administration, education, politics, and more. We held a very successful forum through HANI in February and the response was overwhelming both for OGs and the public.


Following HANI's success we have plans to launch 'LANI', Legal Awareness Network Initiatives to be led by K Yan (Puan Noor Azian bt. Shaari) who is a high court judge. LANI'S aim is to further educate and increase awareness of the rights of women.



HANI and LANI, being the serious face of the OLD GIRLS Strike back, let me tell you, the superb acts and dance performed by the OGs that night presents the lighter side of TKCians. If our MC, Amir Razak (astro's news anchor), did not mention the bit 'performed by TKC OGs', the audience would think that they were some professional dancers. Honest! They were that good.



We had three dance presentation, one of which was called 'The Old Girls Strike Back', performed sportingly, by both K Fauzah and K Akmar, all garbed in white complete with platinum hair, with other sporting OGs, K Sherry, K che Nor and K Yam, to the tune of 'The First Wives' Club'. That was hilarious. We had a 'Saturday Night Fever' number that was upbeat and if we didn't know any better, we thought we were watching MTV that night. Kudos gals! A third performance was...brace yourselves. Yeah...a Bollywood number. The audience were all excited at their entry. The beaty Bollywood score pushed everybody's heartbeat on a faster, racy pace. After all there was Ashwarya Rai look-alike and Kajol look-alike. One could feel the ballroom was shaking, with everyone tapping and swaying to the beat. All three dances were choreographed by our own OGs K Sherry and Ita.


Back on a serious note, our President, explained that our dreams, our aims, our goals, that is in sync with our 'Reach Out' theme can be in our grips that much easier with proper structure and base. To this end it is the main purpose of our dinner this year to raise the necessary funds, in order to achieve having our own building for our TKCOGA. Our Building is located in Putrajaya. Slides of the building were shown to the audience.


We had splendid scrumptious dinner. We chatted and caught up with friends and new acquaitances. Whilst at it we were entertained to lovely songs two of which were performed by our adik2 from TKC. I particularly liked the song 'Kasih' popularised by Hetty Koes Endang, sung that night by adik Ilham. That song was mesmerisingly soothing. We also had a stand up comic by Jit Murad.


Our main entertainer was Bob Tutupoly flown all the way from Jakarta. His rendition of oldies brought back memories of the 70s.


The highlight of the night was the presentation of the 'Outstanding Personality Award' given to none other than Datin Paduka Rosmah Mansor, for all her contribution to her alma mater. She certainly has not forgotten us. I was honoured and privileged to be able to read the citation of the award.


Dinner ended save but one last event which truly brought us back to the way it was back then at college...The Fling of course. Most of us were sporting enough to take to the floor. Quite a number of hubbies too were sported boogeing!


With that the 2006 annual dinner ended in the wee hours of the morning. Certainly looking forward to next year's 60th anniversary dinner.

Cheers,

Ruby.

More photos of our dinner. Enjoy.
(click on photo for larger view)

Pearls of Wisdom

My dearest gang,

I received this from OG DZ (Thanks dear). I think these are real pearls of wisdom from the Anthony Robbins Organisation. Read every single one of them. Think it over. Understand them. Internalise. Do try to embrace as many of them as possible. We will go far, believe me. Here they are all twenty of them....I truly love them.

Simply to keep you guys busy this weekend. (Smile).

Cheers,

Ruby.



ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.


TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.


THREE. Don't spend all you have or sleep all you want.


FOUR. When you say, "I love you," mean it.


FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.


SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.


SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.


EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dream don't have anything to look forward to.


NINE. Love! deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.


TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly.


ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.


TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.


THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"


FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.


FIFTEEN. Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.


SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson


SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions.


EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a GREAT FRIENDSHIP.


NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.


TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.



A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.


Illustration:www.pbs.org/.../pearl/images/yellowwhites.jpeg

Men Men Men!

(actually there is supposed to be some animation, rippling of muscles here and there, but dunno how to get it done. Try clicking on pix, but if there ain't none, the pix will do just fine, I guess, for a little laugh! Dinner pix, next week sweeties.)

My Dearest Gang,

Let's have some light entertainment with this snippet sent by OG Siti Nooruhani Ibrahim (Sittai), again with an open mind. Lets take some mickey out of our dear, dear, handsome men in our lives. What will we do without men (to add laughter in our lives sometime!) Ha ha ha!

Here goes...

All makes sense now... I never looked at it this way before:


MEN tal illness

MEN strual cramps

MEN tal breakdown

MEN opause

GUY ! nocologist

AND

When we have REAL trouble, it's a HIS terectomy.

Ever notice how all of women's problems start with MEN?

Send this to all the women you know to brighten their day.

Send this to all the men just to annoy them HA HA HA HA!

(be cool guys, we do love y'all)

Some blood, profuse sweat and more tears organising a dinner.

My dearest Gang,

It is a whole world of difference when you are a guest at a dinner and when you are one of the organisers.

At times it is wonderful just to be a guest where one can just sit back and relax and enjoy the moments, chatting with friends and savour the scrumptious food served and soak in the lovely show and performances.


The recent TKCOGA themed 'Reach Out' dinner, was different for me. I was not a guest but one of the organisers. Yeah! It was a whole world of difference alright. Stress, strain, palpitations amidst fun and frolic. It was clearly a mix of everything. Adrenalin flow was faster the whole three months (translates as 'I grew younger' as new activities do this to a person). Yeah! Dinner for the organising committee was for three months as compared to just one night for guests. Now that's a world of difference alright.


There was everything to be planned from food, venue, guest lists, gifts, entertainments, who's the MC, what dress to wear down to who are the usual victims this time round yet, yet again (donors, usually the same old gang! Poor souls! Always willing victims.)


Meetings upon meetings, agreements, arguments, not seeing eye to eye, panic, going ballistic, diplomacy, laughter and more laughter, makan upon makan, especially our Madam and Vice Prez love to feed us (K Fauzah and K Akmar), the whole works, the whole drama unfolds before us. It was fun for me, as I love studying human behaviour. It was human management at work. It's all about word language and body language at its heights. The more in touch a person with these skills the more successful I see their ideas get across. Interesting.


Our Patron for our recent dinner is our esteemed TKC daughter, Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor. Since she is a vip one might think she just gives the orders. Uh...uh! It ain't that easy with us TKC gals. Poor K Rosmah, she had to work too. We had meetings with her (more food)! Sigh! She had the tough task of helping us to raise funds in tandem and planning the program and entertainment with us too. To be able to work up close and personal with K Rosmah was quite a dream come true for most of us. Being part of the alumni, a lot of protocol got dropped. A nice change. For instance we get to call her 'K Rosmah'. Woohoo! What a privilege, but something to be cherished and not to be abused.

Work, planning, changes, more changes, on all fours, some blood, profuse sweat, more tears...the day arrived, on the 20th May, 2006.

Will write on 'Reach Out' dinner once photos are ready (sabar sayang2 semua).


Cheers,

Ruby Ahmad.

Mother's Day everyday, anytime, any moment, unstructured!

Good morning gang,

Someone queried if I was going to be busy last weekend celebrating Mother's Day? I said 'No'. I do not celebrate Mother's Day nor any other weekends in the past years on that given date, no I have not and I have not subjected my kids to do so. They know my stand. Someone was somewhat surprised at the utter unconvention especially from a mum, myself!

But why not, one might ask?

You see, I simply do not like to be manipulated by the commercial system. I do not wish to sound like a wet blanket. Don't get me wrong, as I love celebrating special days. Only the special days that are personalised, birthdays and anniversaries, but not days picked by others. I prefer to celebrate days that belong to us exclusively. But to succumb to a day designated by some other and not me, to feel special as a mother, sorry, that is not my way, I do not subscribe to that. But hey this is my personal opinion.

I believe we need special rituals to celebrate some special moments, in our lives. But I do not believe in having too many rituals so much so that I can't live up to the expectations. So much so it bogs us down and robs us of the fun of it all. If we have too many specific dates that we have to address to, I believe at the end of the day we get so stressed up, it defeats the purpose altogether.

For me, one extra day of ritual that I can do without is 'Mother's day'. Why is it so? To me motherhood is so special. Motherhood is so sacred. It must not in anyway be commercialised. Period! I cringed at the thought after labouring being a mother for 365 days a year (not really...) and all joy has to be jam packed in just one day with my kids? Oh no! No way!

That one day to me, can scar my kids. Me too! I do not want them to compare notes as to what they did on mother's day with other kids. How they treat me can only be meaningful in context with me and that is my wish that they love me with some privacy and at any time, any moment and not just one day! I like it left unstructured. I like to know the affection stretches over a very long period and do not give our kids the excuse to just discharge their duties to mums, on just one day...get my drift! No token dates for me being a mother after what I've been through being a mum...! Any date, it is going to be mine, anytime, and many times.

I do not want to be compelled to be on my best behaviour on that single day, as I can have mood swings and what if I was moody on mother's day? Gee! Does that make me a not-so-good-mother?...ha ha ha! What of the other 364 days of being a wonderful mum then! (still laughing). No, not 364 days for me, maybe half...ha ha ha! I'm not a conventional mum you see. There are days, I even forgot I'm one, when I'm in my child-like-mode and it's my kids who turn 'daddy' (I only have boys you see) on me (chuckle)!

As I said this is my personal view, and it is not a crime for anyone who wish to celebrate that day. It is a personal choice.

When I saw these lovely photos of the 'baby' hippo and 'mummy' tortoise it reminded me that a mum is special always.

Happy Mother's Day everyday, anytime, any moment, unstructured!

As they say, Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Ruby Ahmad.

p/s I did receive pecks from my boys and they bought me glass beads bracelet (they know I love any kind of beads) that did not dent their pocket. It was for fun weekend wear at $33...ha ha ha! The commercialisation is too strong for them to ignore the day. So they teased me!

Special thanks to my TKC ex-classmate, Zeijun, who always keeps in touch with me through lovely forwards such as this.

Please scroll down and read article first, then you will enjoy these photos quite immensely!

(This is a real story that shows me that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another).

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

Avoid complaining, offer solutions!

Click on photo for larger view.

My dearest Gang,

This is the reason sometimes I speak out loud to myself and tell myself, just do what you can within your little corner. Yes, it is good to think and ponder, but soon afterwards get up on our feet and do something about it, no matter how small the deed is. I believe in small deeds. Small deeds are do-able. Many small deeds add up rather than dreaming up of a huge act and never achieving the huge dream act ever, till kingdom comes. A waste of energy, I'd say.

I love my little corner, my little world! I learn from observations and it is true the malay saying, 'Hujan emas, negeri orang, hujan batu, negeri kita.'

I would like us to think this way:

If we were about to complain about something and it will just end up as a complain with no solutions to offer, I think it is better that we listen to some music and after the music, we are so happy, who knows, a solution might just surface from some alpha recesses of our brain...voila!

Lesson: Avoid complaining, offer solutions.

Some people might say why should I offer solutions? What do I get out of it? The answer is, if all the intellectuals of this country came out and helped offer solutions to all ills we are faced with and never asked for anything in return, let me assure you, they will get everything in return.

As they say, 'What goes around, comes around'.

Let me do something I love to do of late, making lists. This list is not in any particular order of importance..

(Let me qualify myself, this can only happen, provided everything remains equal, that is all parties are ideally co-operative, sincere in their objectives and not self-serving).

1 They will get a better environment to live in, as numerous do-able good suggestions would have been tabled by these intellectuals as think tankers to the state governments, as to efficient methods of water treatment, latest technology in waste management, tasteful landscaping as to planting of trees to give more shade and oxygen and the lovely green hue that is quite soothing (therefore stress busting), drainage control to avoid current frequent flash floods, pavement management to make it more public-friendly especially for the disabled (and if its good for the disabled it is good for anyone), provide better superbly clean public toilets everywhere and more, the list goes on.

2 They will be surrounded by more intelligent, civics-minded, pleasant, wonderful people making up a better and dynamic society in general, as we would have worked together to improve the education system as a whole. The intellectuals would give solutions to create a more dynamic curriculum to produce more well rounded intelligent students (in studies, in sports (swimming, archery, aikido, fencing, gymnastics) in languages (bahasa, english, french, german, chinese, spanish, arabic) . Well rounded meaning, students who are able to think well and independently, students who are creative and who would pick up the attitude of being pro-active to serve the nation better once they graduate. Students who become professionals at the end of the day of a world-class standard through a much better system of education! Students who are worldly, when they graduate, automatically are deemed able respected global players.

3 Here's an added bonus in that, they would have the gift of peace and harmony and prosperity. When we produce intelligent and well rounded students, when they come out into society, being good thinkers, they will be less irrational and less unthinkingly-reactive, meaning level-headed, therefore they will choose decisions that perpetuates peace and harmony always, there as I said an added bonus. With peace and harmony, the country will be more prosperous and so will all of us! Isn't that what we toiled day and night for, but now, in a better easier environment.

4 They would be harassed with less traffic jams (or maybe no traffic jams, who knows?) as most of the town planner-extraodinaires would come out and work together a system of better road and traffic flow, maybe just go to cities that have good traffic system and observe and study their road system. Just emulate.

5 They would get better deals as consumers as more people are aware of their consumers' rights and in turn, retailers too, are happy to give more to consumers on the understanding that good service begets more loyal customers, therefore profit. No more the endless arguments that we can't get refunds or exchage of goods that we are not satisfied with. We get 28 days grace period, like Harrods in London, voila. Isn't this wonderful. No more products with over-the-expiry dates too (hazadous to our precious health)! Bliss.

I think you guys can add to my list at will items 6, 7, 8, and so on. (Thank you).

Yeah! Call me an idealist. I do dream a lot, I do desire (as most do others) to be in a wonderful, intelligent, dynamic society here. That makes life a whole lot better. All excitement indeed!

Here's what triggered my morning ramble...Looking at the above photo, it tells me, when we allow our society to decay, over time, we will all suffer. That photo can happen anywhere when society lets it happen. So avoid complaining, offer solutions.

Love,

Ruby Ahmad.

(from left, yours truly, K Sherry, Zubaidah) P/S Special thanks to Zubaidah Hamzah for her effort in forwarding this particular mail, amongst other lovely mails, she tirelessly forwards to me giving me great pleasure always.



Message from sender of this chain mail:


i think some of you may have seen this already...

Have a close look at both the photographs & read the messages below them. Forward this message to as many people as you can. This wouldn't fulfill any of your wish; nor deleting it will cause any misfortune; but its our moral duty to be concerned...towards humanity; take
care...

A message from Kevin Carter (photographer):


Kevin Carter

This was found in his diary ,

Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be. I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded by our own selfish nature and interests.

I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted.

Please don't break.. keep on forwarding to our friends On this good day. Let's make a prayer for the suffering in anywhere any place around the globe and send this friendly reminder to others Think & look at this...when you complain about your food and the food we wasted daily........


Photo of Kevin Carter: homepage.tinet.ie

A, B, C, D, DD, E, F, G, and H bra sizes??

Hi gang,

This morning I thought hard whether I should post this blog? I remembered writing in my 'Merdeka' blog, last year, that it is most important to be independent of any out-dated thoughts and actions. I think we owe it to ourselves to be with the times and not anyone else. Keep any intended blame only to ourselves. Period! In other words to progress and get on in life successfully and one of the key ways is to be open-minded.

What does it mean 'open-minded'. It could mean various things to various people. It could mean:

1 non-judgemental
2 cool and calm and collected and creative
3 easy
4 keeping abreast with new goings-on around the world
5 knowledgeable
6 accomodating
7 forgiving
8 hungry to uncover new frontiers
9 forever experimenting
10 expecting things to change at a fast pace minute to minute
11 know how to take the mickey out of life in other words learn to laugh at oneself

The above list was done in 11 seconds this morning and did not go through any serious or heavy or rigorous survey of any kind. But every item on the list helps to my mind in making us a more pleasant human on this earth. Pleasant is a rare commodity these days I find. People are so stressed-up. Not that I blame us being so..what with the state of one major set-back: the ever massive traffic jams (like the one I got caught in (and millions others too), on Saturday 29th May): is enough to make any sane creature go ballistic. (Maybe we should ban long weekends, it became short with the jams afterall. Sigh.) I went ballistic! Anyone would if you felt the same way as how I did when I finally got home..ouch here and there, especially some specific bodily parts, that could only remain still and carried all my weight, all 20 hours (or was it 8, can't remember now! Gruesome.)

Life is huge, really, really huge. There is so much to learn, so much to do, so much to see. We have no time to be small-minded. The world is filled with 6 billion people!! If we do not keep abreast, plenty more out there would. We would be displaced easily. Why I rambled this morning?

Over the long weekend I LOL over a mail sent to me, from my QS buddy (not TKCian, not female). Being a woman I had great interest to read on after seeing all the alphabets. Me too, I didn't know what of the alphabets after all these years! Shame on me. Now that I found out I had utter eagerness to share this sacred knowledge with my other women folks. But looking at the illustrations I paused! After a long 1 second, heck, I decided to blog it.

Keep an open-mind and laugh with me, darlings! I think law number 11 on my list rules this morning. Be cool, sweethearts.

Enjoy all,

Ruby Ahmad.