The Household COO

My Signing Time DVDs are here!  After placing an order for them on August 19, they finally arrived yesterday - two and a half months after because of dodgy postal services and strict customs regarding imported DVDs.

After seeing the size of the box (see the photo above for size impression), I suppose I’m not all that surprised that the first parcel went missing.  Although I find it terribly disappointing that one can’t even make an online order without the entire contents of the delivery going missing!

Nevertheless, I’m glad they’ve finally arrived, and I think, so is Gavin, since he spent the evening watching 4 episodes!

Since discovering that I needed to apply for an LPF letter of exemption to get my DVDs cleared at customs and suspecting that it’s going to be a long and tedious process, I decided to check if FedEx could re-route my parcel to Australia where I’m sure my parents would receive it without any problems.  Turns out I can send it on to Australia but it’ll just cost me another RM480.  At this rate, the shipping charges alone is costing me as much as the DVDs!

After checking things up with the Censorship Office, it appears I need to pay RM280 - I’m not sure whether this is customs duties, LPF costs, or what.  It also appears you need to go in person (or have a representative) in order to apply for the LPF.  Since the office is in Putrajaya, I’m not about to strap my son into his carseat and drive an hour away, bumble my way around a city I’m not familiar with to hunt down the right departments.  So hubby engaged a runner to do this menial task and that’s going to cost another RM200.

Well, what do you know, I’m still going to have to pay another RM480 whatever I decide to do.

And all this because I decided to be smart and save on shipping by buying all the DVDs in one shipment.  Turns out I would have been wiser to incur more shipping charges and order in smaller quantities.  My friend, who has also been placing orders for the same DVDs, has been buying hers in lots of three or four DVDs at one go.  According to her, she receives her shipments very quickly and without problems.

In the end, this is how much I ended up paying for my DVDs:

Initial order and shipping charges - USD$521
FedEx courier charges (for second shipping when the first parcel didn’t arrive) - USD$100
LPF charges - RM480

Total cost - RM2610

If I had bought them in smaller quantities like my friend, I would only have paid RM2160.  In the end, by trying to save money with a bulk shipment, I ended up having to pay RM450 more, plus the added headache, frustrations, annoyance and disappointment when I didn’t receive my DVDs from the first shipment they sent.  Yeah, RM450 that could have bought my son a lot of other things…

After waiting two months with not a peep from the mailman about my order of Signing Time DVDs, I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that it isn’t caught up in customs, but that it’s lost, stolen or otherwise.  I wrote to Signing Time to ask what could be done and they suggested I check with the local post office.  I did, and got the standard reply - no tracking number, cannot help.

I was devastated.  $500 worth of DVDs and they went missing!

I wrote back and asked what could be done.  Signing Time agreed to send me a new set for free as long as I paid for the delivery charges.  I agreed.  This time I asked for them to send it by DHL Express so I can track it.  The cost of delivery might be more expensive, but at least someone’s accountable for delivering my parcel.

In the meantime, there’s no more heavy duty online shopping for me.  Only items that fit into small boxes that won’t attract the unwanted curiosity of some dodgy character in the postal service or pay extra for the added postal security.

And while we’re on the topic of dodgy postal services…  My SIL2 sent a present to her boyfriend in the UK some time back - a hand made t-shirt, some sweets and a card through regular mail.  The only thing that arrived was the card.  Beat that!

As much as I get high off the arrival of a nice little parcel through the mail, I think the disappointment of non-arrival just isn’t worth it.

I had to call up one of those call center service lines today.  Being in a country that is multi-lingual, we are given the choice to select which language we want the customer service (CS) representative to speak in.  Since I can’t even maintain a regular conversation in the national language Bahasa Malayu (BM), I always opt for the English speaking channel. 

So when I rang CS today, I was surprised to find myself unable to understand what the lady was saying to me.  Although I had selected the English line but nothing she said sounded intelligible.  I must have asked her to repeat herself four or five times before I realised she wasn’t speaking in English, but in BM! 

I’m pretty sure I didn’t make the mistake of pressing the wrong channel button because she spoke to me originally in English and then she switched to BM.  Plus I called them on two separate occasions and the same thing happened - the lady would speak to me in English first, then switch to BM.

If you’re going to have CS representatives that can’t speak English properly, and who will switch languages partway through the call, then you had best leave the option of an English speaking CS representative off the list altogether.

I had to call up Streamyx to fix my internet connection as well.  Thankfully, their CS representatives can speak English!  Unfortunately, that’s about all that is better about them.  Check out the conversation that ensued:

Me: I am having problems connecting to the internet.
CSR: What name is the account in?
Me: (it was a business account so I had to tell him the company name) It’s called *company name*.
CSR: Yes?
Me: (I repeat myself)
CSR: Some more?
Me: (thinking to myself) what else is there? (out loud) Sdn Bhd?
CSR: Thank you for verifying your account details.

In case you missed the point, Sdn Bhd is like the equivalent to a Pty Ltd for a business in Australia.  I can’t believe he was waiting for me to add that before he considered my account verified.  I mean, most companies have the suffix Sdn Bhd.  It’s practically a given.

Over the last few weeks, our internet connection was starting to become so unreliable that my SIL2 and I figured that some of the problems had to be due to our router since even Streamyx couldn’t possibly be THAT bad…  Our suspicions were more of less confirmed when the connection would die after an extended period of use and would resume after we turned off the router to give it a “cooling off” period.  After restarting the router, the connection would resume again only to die later as the router started to heat up again.

Since Aztech had served us pretty well for a year and a half, we decided to stick to the same make and model.  When we brought the router back, I tried to configure it for wireless access around the house but for some strange reason, the router was unable to connect to the internet.  After testing, restarting the router, checking and re-checking my settings, and confirming that Streamyx was functioning with the old router, I concluded that something had to be wrong with the router.

Mind you, I’ve had some pretty bad experience with routers in the past.  The first time I bought a router, I bought a D-Link.  Prior to that, our wireless access had been configured by my brother so I had no clue how the router or the modem worked, or what any of the passwords were.  All I knew was how to turn the devices on and off and somehow, mysteriously and magically, there would be internet connection.

So when I bought the D-Link router and couldn’t get it working, I had no idea whether there was a problem with the router or if there was a problem with my settings.  The Streamyx hotline was no help at all and my brother told me the wireless connection was configured by the technician so I really had no one to ask about how the device worked.

Many trips to the computer shop and consultations with numerous IT-savvy friends later, I finally learned that when you’re configuring a router for a Streamyx connection, you need to select the PPoE setting.  Your IPs are automatic and the DNS is fixed.  The primary DNS is 202.188.0.133 and the secondary DNS is 202.188.1.5.  And that’s it.

I also discovered then that there was a problem with the D-Link router I bought, so I took it back to the shop where they “investigated” the problem and confirmed that the router was dodgy. But here’s the annoying part, they had to send the router to their service center to see if they could fix it for me and in the meantime, I had no router.  It took them a month to come back to me and tell me that the router was one of a bad batch of routers and that they would be replacing it with a new router.

After that experience I swore off D-Link products and that’s how we ended up using Aztech.  Because the computer shop we went to only sold D-Link and Aztech products.  Personally, I would have preferred Netgear or 3Com, having had much more reliable products from them in the past.

But I digress…  Back to the Aztech router we had just purchased.  The hubby took it back to the shop the next day and they, too, couldn’t get it to work.  After a while, they managed to figure out the problem.  Apparently, you needed to restart your computer as well as the router after configuring the settings before it will work.  Hubby also told me I was using the wrong password for our Streamyx connection.

Now this is where it gets really weird…

A few months back, my SIL2 was having problems with her laptop.  For some unknown reason, she couldn’t get the wifi connection working.  Technician after technician from Dell came to change just about every part of her laptop but they still couldn’t get it working.  The technician then had the wise (read: dumb) idea of resetting our router to see if it would work.  Why was it a dumb idea?  Because all the computers in the house could access wifi but my SIL2’s laptop so if the problem was the router, then how could we be accessing the internet?

Anyway, after trying to reconfigure the router, none of our computers could access the internet.  So our brilliant technician had not only failed to resolve my SIL2’s problem, but he had effectively created a new problem for hubby and I because then our computers weren’t able to access the internet either!

The hubby then went to work on the router and managed to get it working.  It seemed that the password for the Streamyx account that I had been using was the wrong one (let’s call it password A so we don’t get confused).  Now I was baffled because I used password A when I configured the router the first time and everything was working fine then.  Since no one had changed the password or fiddled with the router between the time that I had configured it up until the time that the technician reset it, there was no way the password could have been changed.  But when the hubby used a different password - which we’ll call password B - everything worked fine.

Since the internet was working fine, I thought, never mind.  So when I tried to reconfigure our new Aztech router, naturally I used password B since that was the password that had worked for our connection.  But hubby discovered password B no longer worked but password A did!

Now am I missing something here or what?

Whatever the case, we’re now back online with a new router that doesn’t die after it starts to heat up (with the only connection issues being the old Streamyx ones and they somehow seem a lot less annoying than they used to after the recent connection problems we’ve had - isn’t it funny how certain circumstances can put a new spin to your perspective?) so who am I to complain?

Between electrical storms, failing internet connections, a nursing toddler and falling asleep, I haven’t been able to get online much since Monday night which is making me feel positively murderous.  As I ponder over this thought, it makes me wonder how sad I must be when the bulk of my free time revolves around the internet.  Sad to say, without the internet, I would be lost.

I can just see it now… forty years down the track when I’m in one of those retirement homes, I’ll be the cranky old witch who screams at the nursing staff because my internet connection isn’t working.  Then again, maybe by that time there will be more reliable service providers and I won’t have to worry about dead or dying connections.  Then all I’ll have to scream about is for someone to change my diapers and to look for my misplaced teeth.

Hmmm… somehow that thought hasn’t really perked up my day. 

When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of old age.  I could never understand that Chinese desire to live long because I would rather die young than live to a ripe old age decrepit and ailing.  Of course, back then, it was an ignorant assumption of a childish mind to associate old age with senility.  Twenty years and a health science education later, I now know that senility is a disease of the old rather than a natural occurrence that accompanies old age.

Now my fear isn’t of growing old but of growing old with disease.  Although I’m still not particularly anxious about dying young, I would hate to grow old plagued by illness.  My motivation to lead a healthier lifestyle stems not from a desire to live longer but from a desire to grow old gracefully. 

You might be wondering what has spurred such morbid thoughts.  It is the recent news of one of my parents’ friends who has been diagnosed with myeloma.  It wasn’t all that long ago when my aunt discovered she had colon cancer which she tried to fight with chemotherapy only to succumb to the disease after it had metastasised to her spinal column.  Being part of the same group of friends that used to go on holiday together, I am sure they are still recovering from the news of my aunt’s passing.

The irony was that my aunt’s cancer had been present a couple of years back when she first took a colonoscopy to check what was causing her vague but unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms.  Back then, the doctors had missed the cancer due to the obstruction from some unusual anatomy.  By the time they detected the cancer, it was a year later.  My aunt went through surgery to remove the cancer followed by two rounds of chemo because the drugs they used in the first round weren’t working for my aunt.  After the chemo, they did a half body scan to check for presence of cancer cells and pronounced her to be in remission. 

Despite the cessation of chemo, my aunt still had pain in her chest which they said was due to the chemo.  When the pain persisted, they did more scans only to discover that the cancer had spread to her spinal column and it was in a location that was difficult to operate on.  If they operated, there was a 50-50 chance she could end up paralysed in the lower half of her body.  If they didn’t operate, there was still a strong likelihood that she would become paralysed in the lower half of her body.

By that time, my aunt’s hopes for remission had been dashed and she decided she would accept no more treatment except pallitive care to see her through to the end.  At the end, my aunt said that in retrospect she wished she hadn’t opted for the chemo hoping to live longer only to waste the last year of her life being sick from chemo. 

In my aunt’s case, she was very unlucky that the doctors missed the cancer during earlier scans and she was also unlucky because of the location of the cancer spread to her spine.  It’s hard to say that things might have gone differently under slightly different circumstances.  That she was my favourite aunt and a mother to me during the early years of my life has not made her passing any easier - only the usual regrets that I didn’t spend more time with her at the end or that I should have been more supportive.

Towards the end, she was suffering so much she kept asking to go.  To have hoped for her to live longer would have been to wish more suffering upon her.  It is still hard to believe she’s gone when my memories of her are so vivid and alive.  It is always difficult to accept death before we deem it a person’s time to go.  I guess that old adage is a good one to live by: “carpa diem!” because your last day might be sooner than you think.

After my SIL2’s comment about my blogs taking a long time to load, I decided it was time to clean up my sidebar.  Yeah, I knew it was slow but it’s just one of those things you procrastinate about because you don’t think it’s very important.  Aside from the increased speed of loading my blog, you’ll notice that my sidebar is now a lot shorter as I’ve moved the highlights from my wedding here.

I’ve also cleaned up the sidebar for Babylicious and discovered that the Blogrush widget was really slowing my site down.  Looks like I might also take it off Pro-Sports and A Writer’s Papyrus since it doesn’t appear to be doing a whole lot for me in terms of adding new visitors to my blogs - although those blogs don’t seem to be as slow to load up as Babylicious or this blog.  Even John Chow felt Blogrush hasn’t helped him either and removed it from his main blog. 

It’s been a rather tedious process but hopefully you’ll notice the difference.  If you still find my blog rather slow to load, please post a comment below and I’ll see what else I can do to fix it - thank you!

After finally discovering that I can purchase the Power Mill Blender from Australia online and deciding that I was going to get one, I find out that I can’t get it after all.  At least - not yet.  Malaysia charges tax on the import of electrical goods into the country - even if it is intended for domestic use only.  And it’s not some minor amount either!  You also need an import license.

How annoying!

Today was a rather productive day that worked out remarkably well.

After making a blunder on the Air Asia tickets I booked for my MIL and FIL (I made a typo with my MIL’s name, dropping off the “n”), I tried to make the change online only to discover that I had to call the hotline. When I called the hotline, they redirected me to the “packages” department because the tickets I bought were packaged with hotel stay and apparently the staff manning the hotline had no authority to make any changes.

Just in case you’re wondering - no, you are not charged for making changes if you make a spelling error when booking tickets online. The charges only apply if you want to change the passenger so if you do make a mistake like I did, don’t get your knickers in a knot - although getting it corrected it tedious, at least you don’t have to pay for this mistake.

I tried unsuccessfully to call the Air Asia “packages” department, either receiving an engaged tone or no one would pick up until the phone line cut. Finally, I decided that the only way I was going to get things resolved was to go into one of their offices to see them personally. Luckily their customer service office is located at KL Sentral and not at Sepang.

Since Gavin was also due for his MMR booster shot at Pantai Medical Center (which is near KL Sentral), hubby suggested I kill two birds with one stone and get them both done today. When you’ve got a toddler in tow, trying to get too many errands done in one day can sometimes be a mistake, but today, it worked out to a tea.

We stopped by Pantai and picked a number for Gavin’s appointment (all paediatric appointments are on a first come first served basis), then we went over to KL Sentral to correct the e-ticket details. Located next to McDonald’s, the Air Asia office is rather small, but the service was great (which was a refreshing change to the usual poor service I’ve come to expect from businesses in this part of the world). Although my number was about forty away from the number being served, the customer service staff worked pretty quickly.

My SIL and I went for lunch at Subway which was just a few shops down and by the time we came back, my number had just been called. The customer service representative was polite and efficient and it took a matter of minutes before we were on our way back to the hospital for Gavin’s injection appointment.  When we arrived at the hospital, I discovered we were the next in queue to go in. 

By the time we were done at the hospital, it was nearly 2pm - just in time for Gavin to go home for a nap.  This was just one of those days when the timing was just perfect and everything ran smoothly.  I realise that we often remember the days when everything goes wrong but we rarely remember the days when everything worked out really well.  Hence, I decided to write this post to remind myself that sometimes, everything does go my way.

“When I have no time for me, I have no time for anyone.”

As a SAHM, finding a block of time that I can completely dedicate to myself with minimal interruptions is rather rare. In order to fulfil this need, I started to stay up after Gavin had gone to bed so I can spend some time writing, reading or just surfing the internet.

Although it means I usually get less sleep, I find filling this need for personal time just as important as getting sleep. On the nights when I am too tired to stay up or if I didn’t get a chance to go online for whatever reasons, I tend to veer off into two different modes during the day. I either feel more agitated and irritated easily, or I start to feel listless and a meaninglessness of my existence. And when I feel either of these emotions, I am unable to give the best of myself to the people I love.

Of course, to say that my existence is meaningless tends to diminish the importance of my son, but in no way do I mean that. If he weren’t so important to me, I would be off conquering the world and chasing after my career like the ambitious Type A personality that I am. Yet, at the same time, when I was on my own chasing careers and rock climbing grades, there was also a lack of meaning in my life.

I guess what I’m saying is that I need balance in order to feel fulfilled and to lead a meaningful life - at least one that is meaningful to me anyway. By balance, I’m referring to a need for personal time, personal achievements and of course family time. As a professional Mum, I don’t have any problems managing the latter, but it’s the first two aspects that I find difficult to fit into my life.

In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, I try to combine my personal time with some sort of personal achievement. For instance, I spend my personal time blogging because I love to write and having something published online (no matter how trivial it might at sometimes) is about as big a personal achievement as I’m likely to get right about now. With the stigma on SAHMs being quite useless and brainless - at least that’s the impression that is conveyed to me whenever I write down “profession: homemaker” - I’ll relish whatever achievements I can pat myself on the back for and live up whatever past laurels I can hold on to just to stay sane.

It’s difficult to articulate how I feel about being a SAHM. When working Mum friends tell me how luck I am to be able to stay home with my son, I have to agree that I am blessed. But for those to think I get to stay home and do nothing, I seriously beg to differ. Raising a child is exhausting because you have to be a playmate, a companion, a teacher and a mother all at once. And when you have to do this all day and be on call all night, even the most dedicated mother needs a break from time to time just to stay sane.

Choosing to raise a high-needs toddler with a responsive parenting style, especially when he demands a lot of my time, creativity and patience, has been a very enriching experience and it has also taught me a lot about myself. However, it has also made me aware of how important “me” time is. “Me” time is a chance for me to reflect on my experiences, to think about more complex adult issues, and to dream. When I have “me” time, I find myself to be more energised, more willing to give and generally, a happier person.