Eat Smart, Save Mother Earth!

Do you notice?

# ­+7.34 million tons of solid wastes were generated in Malaysia (2005) = fill up 42 buildings x PETRONAS Twin Towers!

# By 2020, daily solid waste = the size of 20 football fields measuring up to a metre in height! Yearly = 9.1 million tons (population of +36 million) and 45% is made up of food waste. (Source: Ministry of Housing and Local Government)

So, I just went back from several restaurants to conduct simple surveys regarding food-waste. The result is amazing. People around my area (Hentian Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia) don’t like wasting foods which is a good thing! 

However, I could not resist myself to question several costumers and the owners about their eating habit. Here is what I have found:

1) When cooking at home, they tend to cook extra portion making sure they have ‘enough’ left for dinner. But in the evening, they end up having no appetite for same food again. They go out. Ergo,  food has been wasted.

Solution :
Reuse food to reduce waste! Reuse edible leftover foods. E.g : In South East Asia, one of the most famous dishes is fried rice. Making fried rice out of leftover white rice is a good choice! Websites like bbcgoodfood.com, lovefoodhatewaste.com or bigoven.com provide you interesting recipes to try!

2) Health condition. Whenever they get sick, there is no appetite to eat. However, they have got to eat to take their medicine. Again, foods prepared or bought are wasted.

3) Some cases (observed by restaurant’s owner) like dating couple is sometimes having too much conversation that they tend to ignore the food. Romance over Stomach, I guess?

 4) At some restaurants which tend to serve bigger portion, food will be wasted too.

Actually, good eating habit has been taught by ancestors. In South East Asia especially, there is philosophy that the amount of leftover food equals to the amount of boon you threw away today. Some tale even says: the rice will come over as nightmare if we don’t finish every bit of it. This might sound silly, but strange enough, it has been proven effective to encourage kids (at least) not to waste food on their plate. Japanese word mottainai which means “what a waste!” and “don’t be wasteful” is also great philosophy embracing 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) with an additional 4^th R = “Respect”. Respect to our beloved environment.

Talking about initiatives, I totally agree with restaurant imposing fines to costumers for leftover food. A great example has been successfully implemented at Marmar Restaurant in Damma, Saudi Arabia. The owner even sends collected fines to Somalia supporting the hunger cause over there. Other restaurant is WAFU, a Hongkong based Japanese restaurant which charging 30% extra for leftover food. As result, costumers order less! Way to go!

In Malaysia, another attempt to reduce food waste is by implementing first food waste treatment plant by 2014, under SME Corp.

I believe there should be specific local government policy about food waste. We may start small, like current “Saturday No plastic Bag” campaign. Government may issue certain endorsement for restaurants to cooperate implementing this policy. Call it “Weekends No Leftover” campaign, may be?

THINK.EAT.SAVE – REDUCE YOUR FOODPRINT!

Our first album!

November 3rd, 2012. Our very first album by Universal Music Malaysia has been finally launched. Thanks to Ministry of Culture, Communication and Information and JKKN for this special gift.

Everything happens for a reason (Part 2)

I started my second internship early February this year. I did Public Relation internship as Liaison Officer in one of event management companies in Petaling Jaya. From all various experiences I have learned, there are 2 best things : 1) I had been paid professionally for my skills 2) My job scope included one of my thing : traveling! 

Well, I did my professional internship for 7 months. So, I left last August. As a "trying-to-be-independent" student, up til I type this post, so not to cause too much hassle to my mom, I impede myself asking for money. So, after I left from my internship, of course I have to find new strategies to work on my financial situation. Unfortunately, during internship, with mind-set of having the full rights of what I have earned by myself (continuously each month), instead of saving a lot, I ended up spending lots. One of them is definitely shopping. Darn! 

Well, let's focus on how to move forward. Then I started to list several activities which of course based on my interests and my talents. Plus, keep praying. Then, it started with a call from my colleague I met during my internship, she knew I love managing an event. So, she asked me to join her managing an annual dinner. Not much to do, just executing.  Well, this is what I need for now. I took it. It went well. In the same period (september), I got an email offering interview session for an event ambassador. I went to the session, went smoothly, but may be they were not that happy for my "price". So, it would be strike-through for that one. 

Still in the same period (mid-september), there was an open audition for singing competition. I went, passed to 2nd round, then to Top 7. The final round has just ended last saturday night (oct 6). I won 3rd place. I was so grateful since I might say, that was the toughest singing competition I have ever participated in. Well, the cash prize wasn't that much, enough to redeem costume cost I have spent. But, the moment was awesome. All sweat and hardwork have been all paid. Why so? You may again review the timeline, the preliminary round started mid september, then 2nd round started few days after. Announced as one of the top 7, made it even more challenging. Then, we were asked to pick movie's soundtrack songs. Not hard enough? It's two songs! Pop Balad and Beat. Several drama scenes happened through these process. I started practicing after reconfirming my songs to my vocal mentor and then the composer supposed to start composing the song.

2 weeks passed, intensive vocal training for the finalist has begun. The organizer invited Malaysia's Vocal Guru : Siti Hajar. I have learned so much from her during the week. 

Drama begun when we started to do rehearsal with the pre-composed and newly arranged music from the musicians. For the 1st, 2nd rehearsal, I've got only my first song ready. Then, I finally could hear a semi-ready music for my beat song in 3rd rehearsal. But what was the drama? When we did the 4th rehearsal, it was recorded for hearing purpose of the composing judge to choose best composer of the year. But what happened? My beat song was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from being ready to sung. Even worse, my first Balad song was so messed up, I already hit the right note, but the music went somewhere else. I was so pissed of, that was the last full rehearsal and my songs wouldn't seem to be ready til next year! Far worse, only my songs up to that point were messy, the rest of the finalist's were just freakin fine! I almost gave up. You would know how that feels if you were there. Where you could see and hear clearly, others' musics were just fine, and when it came to your turn, the musicians suddenly did half-will play. I returned home earlier than usual, trying to relax my mind. 

The next day (Show Day), mid-day I went to the venue to do choreo rehearsal. Sadly, my dancers would only be coming at 6 pm! like 2 hrs before the show call-time! Final Rehearsal wouldn't be started til 4 pm or so, then I prepared only several props needed later on then optimized my stage act with my performance mentor. Even I sang my song without my dancers in the final rehearsal. Finally, after I finished ironing my performance costumes, I went to short session of dancing with my dancers, trying to memorize several steps. Show would be started in an hour and I forgot to bring my shoes! Then, I went back home in a rush few minutes before the show call-time. Huff! Preparation completed. Then competition started. 'Til my turn to sing, I just thought of one thing : "whatever it is, whether the music would go wrong tonight , I don't care, show must go on and I will get a place!". Then there you go, I went like crazy and the musics were surprisingly the best!

Well, after the announcement, while having refreshment, I thanked the Head Judge, Cikgu Siti Hajar for the appreciation. She told me : "You can become an entertainer! I could see great improvement since your training past few days. Congrats! Feel free to drop by our studio sometime :).."

Well, another great moment has passed, now it's time to move on? What am I gonna do next? I'll be participating in Langkawi International Mountain Bike Challenge 2012 as Liaison Officer. I'll be departing tomorrow night and the event is expected to end on October 21st. 

This job has also different story. I got the information even before the preliminary of the singing competition, so I added it to my list of new strategies for period of September and October. So, as for now everything on my list has almost fully accomplished but one-that event ambassador thingy. Good enough for me! :) #Law of attraction :). So, what's the story? Ok, I'll make it simple. I missed the first interview, then I contacted the organizer again to ask for 2nd chance aaand he let us! Then yesterday morning, we were briefed and ready to go!  

Everything happens for a reason. As long as we fight for our dreams, all of them will happen soon!

Mata-ne!

Everything happens for a reason (Part 1)

I have sudden intention to write something. May be just for sharing and hopefully as reminder to me and others which is better if it inspires!

Last April, I got an award (Excellent Contribution) from the 7th National University of Malaysia's Innovation Award, 2012. What's the story? 

I knew the information through one of our student portals. By the time I decided to apply as candidate and asking for recommendation from my Faculty Dean, the application has been close. But then again, it's me! There's always a way for something I want. I prepared all the requirement files. 

Few days after, new notice posted : Candidate application date has been extended for one week. Yai! That's the moment. So, I went to Dean's office and ask for the recommendation. I like all faculty staffs. Especially the top level management. They all fully understand that I'm not really into my own major, so everything I do they do appreciate them e.g : Dean's always willingly giving recommendation letter and special permission letter (to miss class, of course) when I have to travel a lot because I have to attend international youth forums/conferences abroad. And not to mention recommendation for this award. He knows that I deserve the award (from my previous experiences representing university here and there), plus having a recommendation directly from Dean of Faculty will endorse the assessment strongly. Then I sent the application to the Student Center. 

A week after, the committee called me and informed me to come to an interview session by next week. I was kind of relieved at first and was thinking : Ah, there would only be like 2 or 3 eligible candidates. It's going to be informal interview since they just wanted to reconfirm who should be given the award. Then few days after, formal notice came through my email said : "Please come to the interview session, bla bla bla...". I thought it's just like simple reminder, but then? There's attachment of formal letter with name of all eligible candidates! There were like 15 candidates! and I know some of them! GOSH! I started to be a little bit pessimistic that time. 

'Til the interview day. I came with rumple shirt and casual shoes. Ooops! I was early. then I left the venue to go eating. I was so shocked after I came back and saw everybody was wearing formal suit! you know, with tie and all! Darn! Even worse, they were not only 15 candidates, but more! And I know most of them are real good! Finally my turn to be interviewed. Another shock! The interviewers were not just student center staffs but University Top Management persons! Okay, this is going be even tougher than I have imagined. I started to be a lil bit nervous. Then when the first question asked, I started rambling continuously til only 40 seconds left. That's when the 2nd question asked. LOL. I left, with no huge hope anymore.

Then almost a month passed, I heard no news. Well, you have to realize, you are international student who compete with locals whom what they did, were all observable. Not like you, you travel too much! What do you think such contribution matter?!

And around end of April, I got a surprising call informing me : "Please take your award prize to Leadership Center. You won the award, right?". I was like : "???????". Well, that's how it ended. I was super excited! You can imagine how grateful I am after all the scenes above and these past few years, finally university has acknowledged my contributions. Yet, why didn't I know about the award giving ceremony night? 'Cos that time we were on mid semester break plus the invitation letter was sent to wrong address. Stupid, right? But whatever! Even if I missed the superb moment, at the end of the day : I won! The one and only recipient from all degree students. 

What did I get ? Yep! I got formal cert from Rector and cash prize, of course. Plus, More acknowledgement of my activities and being noticed by top level management. I know you feel me. You know, when you meet them anywhere and they will call your name :). Plus, lifetime hearing session to their office if you have important event to go to.Which again, I know you know how hard it is to even get appointment to talk to them privately. 

Well, as one of the post-award privileges, I just did a hearing session last week for an event in Gangneung, South Korea this upcoming October 19. And for that short 5 minutes talk, I will exceptionally be sponsored without having difficulties to process any documents like you know, common bureaucracy which taking years and might end up getting nothing! I was super excited! I knew it from the start! If only I could have the hearing, no matter how last minute it is, something good will turn up! Besides, I didn't ask that much since I will be partially sponsored by Government of Republic of Korea. So, wish me luck!

At first, I was hesitating to make an appointment. But there's another scene behind it. I supposed to go to Holland with one of the Deputy Rector for an international Rectors meeting last september. But due to certain issues, I couldn't go. Funnily, the deputy rector who went there was kind of asking to another university VIP, "Why didn't we (university) send any student?" There is Rector-Student meeting there, also student forum which will support the recommendation for the new policies going to be applied around the world. Besides, next year's International Meeting of Ministry of High Education is going to be held in Malaysia. So, our participation matters! That's how it goes. So, may be my hearing went well was one of the impact of their regret feeling of the current event. Even so, the Deputy VC said to me, "It is university responsibility to support you for any event you go to, representing our beloved university. Besides, you deserve it since you are also carrying huge responsibility after winning the award." :)

I hope we may learn something from what I have shared :)



  

What has happened to today's kids?

Well, this post is merely my 2 cents about today's kids' interests. This topic came up after today, former Indonesian junior singer, Tina toon became TT in Twitter. Her popular song entitled "Bolo-bolo" was a huge hit at the time when I was like 7 years old. I suddenly realized that in my childhood I still had experience like my older sisters had back at their childhood moments : Listening and Singing Kids' Songs. But today, it's totally different. We can hardly find kids singing songs suitable for their age, in fact they prefer to sing pop songs (e.g: love songs). It even makes sense when my sister who is kindergarten teacher told me one of the biggest problem in her school now : Kids can count and read, but they can't sing kindergarten songs. Instead, they sing band's hits which are pop, pop rock, malay pop, etc. Funnily, when they were asked the meaning of some phrases in the lyrics, they said they had no idea! Fohsyo! Cos they are still lil kids! lol! What has happened to kids today? Is it because the music production houses don't promote kids music anymore? or vice versa? where kids aren't into it anymore? Doesn't it inculcate bad impact by exposing children to something they barely know about?