A new baby cousin

Caitlin is so excited and thrilled that she now has a new baby cousin. He was born at 11.40am yesterday (30 May), weighing 3.1kg, to my younger brother Joon King and his wife Ee Ling. The baby is their first child and third grandchild for my parents.

Caitlin jumped and shouted "Yay! The baby is born" yesterday morning when I told her that aunty Ee Ling was at the hospital. She loves babies and adores her other baby cousins Sarah (22 months), Mark (8 months)and Kinglee (2 years, tomorrow). She had been talking to the baby in aunty's tummy the past months.

We saw the baby when he was just three hours old and this morning, Caitlin pestered to visit the baby again. Today, she touched him, stroked his head gently and kept saying he is so adorable.

Congratulations JK and EL! Welcome to parenthood and the start of a looong and exciting journey!

Making a living or making a life?

Eugene has been rather busy the past two weeks, coming home later than usual. Caitlin is getting used to the fact that daddy has to work late and go out for meetings. She has developed a special goodbye routine in the mornings. She says goodbye and waves her hand side to side, gives a flying kiss and then waves again with fingers bending up and down. Sometimes the routine is preceded with a hug.

The typical working life in Kuala Lumpur includes hours spent on the road travelling to and from work due to traffic jams. It gets worse if it rains. And most Malaysian companies have work culture that involves staying after hours to complete some work or rush a deadline.

On the average, one spends at least 12-15 hours away from home on a weekday. How much time is there left to live and savour the remaining hours of a day considering the additional hours needed to attend to the basics of having meals, baths, sleep, minor chores etc? And how much time is there left to spend with the family?

What can one do to swing the weight over the other side and achieve balance? Or even better, to achieve freedom from the drudgery of exchanging your time for a salary, which for most, will not see you through retirement? This is where terms like 'financial freedom', 'flexi-time', 'work from home', 'freelance', etc have become buzzwords to those who realise the need to break away from the traditional practice of working as an employee to make a living. With so little time in our hands, should we spend our 24 hours simply making a living or making a LIFE for ourselves and our loved ones?

"Seek and you shall find"
"You reap what you sow"
"Time and tide wait for no man"
"Money is not the most important thing in life, but it does affect the most important things in life"
"It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning"
"The mind is like a parachute, it only works when it is open"
"There is nothing you cannot be, do or have"

School break

The mid-term school holiday has officially begun. It's not much different for me but for the employed like Eugene, it means lighter traffic on the roads in the mornings. For Caitlin, today seems like just an extension from last week when she was down with HFM. To her, she had started her holiday last week itself when I told her the first few mornings that she didn't have to go to school.

This week will be spent replacing the Mandarin classes she missed last week, catching up on schoolwork and playing. She had a good time playing and ate relatively well today as she no longer has painful ulcers on her tongue.

She was pretty much in her own world today, role-playing camping with her stuffed dog and teddy, doing her homework on her own with them (she taught the dog to write 'bus'), reading to herself (and to the toys) at the 'camp site', colouring, singing and chattering away by herself.

At this time of writing, she is making up her own words to a book she is reading aloud while Eugene is in another corner reading his book quietly. This is a rare occasion Eugene and I get to do our own thing, even if it is only for 20 minutes before our 'lady boss' decides to switch focus and summon us for a joint activity.

I hope the next two weeks will be as easy as today.

Business, ethics, integrity, honour, image...

A friend presented a scenario to me and sought my thoughts this afternoon. Company A whose partnership with Company B in a joint-venture business turned sour. Now A wants to put B in bad light by highlighting B's possible misdeeds, unrelated to their past business together, through a public relations exercise.

B has allegedly delayed or not complied (not sure if intentional or unintentional) to a requirement set by the authorities. A, however, does not have any business operations in the country that B is operating in which the latter has committed the alleged misdeed....

Is it ethical or right for A to disguise their revengeful intentions using a public relations campaign (a smear campaign?) although the campaign may not single out B specifically? If the campaign is positioned in such a way that A is seen as supportive of the authorities and helping the authorities and various industries across the board achieve compliance, wouldn't anyone question A's true intentions since A does not have any business operations whatsoever in that country?

What benefit would A derive from this PR campaign apart from the satisfaction of seeing its rival go down if the campaign is successful? A positive image with the authorities, media and investors which in turn opens doors for easier entry, investment funds etc should it decide to start business there?

Is it prudent and worth spending the money for such a smear campaign? How would this be perceived in the eyes of its stakeholders i.e. shareholders, investors, employees?

These are just my initial unorganised thoughts.

Caitlin vs. Mr Virus again!

Caitlin has HFM (more info at this link) or to those not familiar with the abbreviation, it is hand, foot and mouth disease. She most likely caught it at school. She's got ulcers on her tongue, in other parts of her mouth and some rashes on her soles. There were some on her bottom too but they've disappeared.

What's most challenging in caring for her is her reluctance to eat as her tongue hurts. Besides that, she is behaving like her usual self and does not have a fever. Liquids, soft and cold food have been on the menu the past 2-3 days and even then, she's complaining and takes even longer than usual to finish her meal, or rather, for me to feed and coax her to finish it.

It's the week before school closes for a two-week mid-term break so it looks like she's getting a three-week break instead, with unlimited access to cold drinks, popsicles and ice cream thrown in, plus skipping her mandarin and music lessons!