day 14

Today is another challenging day as it will be a Kenduri at Cik Jah's house. I got to know that Cik Daud was going to cook for the kenduri. What...Cik Daud cooking today. What a nightmare for me. Cik Daud is the Cooking Maestro of Parit Sulong. Mentioned his name and his cooking make you comparing him to Masterchef or Iron Chef. His specialty is Nasi Beriani Johor with signature dish of Daging masak Biftik...I am salivating just to describe them here. His cooking has made him travel around Malaysia. His cooking made famous as not only due to the words from mouth to mouth,he is also the entourage of Datuk Johan Jaafar, the Media Prima Chairman. He is a very very VVIP in Corporate Malaysia. He was once moderator on TV whose milestone achievement in moderating a Live debate on TV between Anwar Ibrahim and Shabery Cheek(Ex Sdarian) Looking at the situation, it will be really a tough job to avoid Cik Daud's cooking.I've decided to skip Cik Jah kenduri with hesitations instead head my way off to Shah Alam.

Paper clippings article Datok Johann Jaafar on Jom Heboh

We fetched Nisah who came back from Korea in KLIA. She would arrive that night at 10pm in Korean Air
Started in the morning with 5 minutes fat abs buster exercise I learned from Mike Chang. Manage to complete one round. Indeed it was very torchering exercise just to complete one cycle. I also look into the net on how to calculate the calories that i burn in every exercise. You must know how long you should exercise in order to bring down the calorie intake for the day. Or else you be exercising aimlessly and doing unnecessary exercise and you would not get the desired result fast. Got myself into the calorie burner calculator and checked things for every 30 minutes jumping rope session(1000 jumps).

Day 12 and 13

Day 12 and 13

It was Deepavali Holiday, it would be another day to put myself in check.
Morning 4oo repeats Night 400 repeats of jumping rope. In the evening I together, with my parents went to Kuala Selangor to look for a new seafood market spot. We were told that there is a place called Bagan Tengkorak which is more famous for its seafood freshness. We got ready our Polystyrene box and standby a few hundred ringgits before we took off. At first we thought that it was easy to find the place but we end up looking our way out from Kg Bagan Tengkorak for almost an hour. Most of the villagers over there did not have a clue of what we were looking for when asked about direction. Some gave direction to a Chinese Village and many did not know anything at all. After long thoughts we decided to make our way back home with our polystyrene box still empty.
On our way back home we came across a full house restaurant by a roadside which sells Mee Udang Banjir. As tempted as a kid being offered candies, we drop off and managed to get empty seats for ourselves. First impression was good when we see no empty seats and we saw people waiting for their orders. There are also ample car park for visitors as there are car park spaces at the backyard of the kampung shophouses . As we were seated, abah called up the waiters to clear the dishes leftover by the previous seaters. We order 3 sets of Mee Udang and drinks and take home another 3 sets. As we looked around while waiting for our orders we soon realized that not only us waiting for the orders to come, almost all the tables were empty, no food and no drinks. I also realized that that was a big dinning table with about 10 people still awaiting restlessly for their order to come. I look my watch every minutes whenever the order came out from the kitchen and when our order reached our table we have already waited for 1 hour. As the food reached our table I heard people at the back table rumbling to the waiter because they did not get even the drinks that they have ordered. Hearing it, it did our cut our appetite and we just could not enjoy the Mee udang banjir. To our dissatisfaction, the food was not that great. It just noodle served with tomato sauce in soup except that the dish was full of fresh prawns. Nothing more and nothing less. Within 10 minutes we did finished our food and after paying for the food together with tapaus we rush back home almost at 7pm. After all the mishap,that would be the last time we have our Mee udang there.
Day 13 go for break from exercise.
I was trying very had today to resist the cooking at home. So far I have managed to cut down my nasi intake during lunch at work for 1/2 of serving. But the problem come whenever I reached home. Today it was my dad turn to put a "temptation" test on me. Abah cooked mee goreng using Maggi instant noodle and when i further probed into the kitchen I found a pan full of lokan(or kepah) cooked in curry. No, I am not going to fall prey to these lokan and mee goreng. To psyche myself i did some mental calculation on how much my calories will shoot up today if i took a dip into them. Wow, it will be about 2 days of previous calories. After looking back and forth the cookings on the plates, I decided it would be a waste if you I did not have it and as long as you could make a promise to yourself that I could recover the next day by doing extra exercise to cut the calories.

Day 11 & 12

It was the first day of the week. Inside me there will always have a conflicting whenever I went to the canteen. whether to take rice for lunch or not. Whenever I go the canteen, I could see dishes which are very tantalizing such as rendang ayam, ikan masak lemak spreading on the cooking cabinets.
At night I took Sup sayur and fish ball for dinner and it has been my second without taking rice and night.A good accomplishment to shout out. On 11th night skipping 800 repeats. Just before I went to bed, I came across ads in youtube about six pack shortcut programme promoted by a professional fitness trainer by the name of Michael Chan. I clicked on the banner and I was ng brought to the podcast and website introducing me to the concept of after burn effect. It simply promoting an exercise and dieting that could make you loose your weight in a shorter time. I read through the testimonial and it was sure a magnet to me having learned on how much they have tremendously changed after taking those programme.
On day twelve not much of activity during work. My boss was not in the plant for 1/2 day and that allowed me to roam around the plant at will. I joined the Sub Local Comittee just for the sake of having intellectual discussion with the Production team. Not much an issue to put into my logbook for me to follow up
In the afternoon, i went to the in house clinic to check on my weight after almost 2 weeks into the pursuit. I also need to do some calibration to the new weigher that I bought last week.When went on to the scale, it shows my weight at 97.5kg so it now confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my new weighing scale as oppose to my sisters deliberation that the old weigher is more accurate as it gave lower reading. Now I have every reason to dump the old weigher as it does not longer serve its purpose.But you have served your Master well my servant.

Day 10

It's Sunday, and it is the day of a reckon. I had made a promise to myself that I would have 2 day break from my pursuit. It is the time to know what I am made of. I am a man of my word so i have to take it seriously.I got up slightly late this morning after having a momentous day yesterday. Yesterday the whole family send my sister to KLIA for her departure to Korea. She supposed to be on board at 11pm but to make sure that there will be no problem, we decided to move out at 5pm.
Yesterday also I managed to catch my favourite team Newcastle beating the leakiest team in BPL currently with a marvelous maiden goal from Cabaye. With the win, Newcastle has stretched their unbeaten record this season to 9 games, the best record in 14 years.
I had a bad start today as i could not resist mom Asam Pedas cooking with fish that we bought in Kuala Selangor two weeks back. I had two servings of nasi (source of carbo) that goes with the Asam Pedas. And as for dinner,I bought spaghetti from Pizza Hut and it was two day in a row that I had spaghetti for dinner. As for exercise I did 1150 repeats of skipping, 750 on afternoon and 400 at night. Last weight check it was 99kg.

Day 8 and 9....of the pursuit

It's the day after I had my medical checkup passed by Dr Norazahari. Slightly relieved and very tiring at the same time. After 7 days it has already exhausted my well being. Though it was not as consuming yet I could sense that my old self is trying to creep in back into me. Those flashes of memory enjoying mom's cooking reappearing when ever try to pick up my skipping set . I psyche myself of not to repeat the costly experience I had earlier being regular visitor to clinics. But I really need a day or two for break. In fact weekends was coming and my sister was going to Korea for her winter holiday. I could not let the moments having help my sister preparation to pass by so I decided...to take a break.Period
For two days I have stopped exercising instead it was replaced by gastronomic adventure. On the day 8 I have sumptous dish at Seksyen 15 of Nasi Goreng Kampung and Sup ekor. I had a late dinner at 9pm with my old time friend Nizam who was my colleague at Japanese Electro Plating company. It has been a year that we met at the same makan spot of the same dish. We had a refreshing talk about how life and work has been getting on. Definitely a lot of changes has taken place in the company and heard news whereabouts of old friends and foes.
After I shared my experience on the medical checkup, I asked Nizam how was his health lately when I noticed him slowly picking out from his pocket shirt a pack of cigarettes. He said that his BP at high side lately due to workloads. Nizam is a Tool Design Engineer and he spent most of his time at work in front of computer reviewing plating tool design. He said the workload has been increasing ever since the sister plant of the company in Thailand has been struck by flood. Some of the loading has been transferred to Malaysian operation. I wonder whether his giving lame excuse of workload or try to hide the fact the it was his smoking habits that do the damage to him. As time struck 11pm I am getting sleepy and I asked we ended the dinner. Not that I was bored but it was that my body has become very tiring due to rigorous exercise that i had earlier. After having wish him well I drove back home at 1130pm

Day 7 of the pursuit

Day 7

As I have planned earlier the day before, I supposed to come to work and check my glucose result through the visiting doctor in rhe Plant Clinic, but somehow my car broke down due to overheated temp again. After I got it fix by 1pm I decided to spare my time seeing my personal Doctor, Dr Munirah to check my glucose level. It has been 14hrs after I had my last meal and I think the result should be better than the last check I had at Klinik Kita. After a chat with Dr Munirah while she was at the same time doing the rapid test using the kit, I waited anxiously the result and to my relief it shows through the display 5.70. I asked her whether she could give me prescription in preparation for tomorrow's check but politely she refused. At first I was slightly frustrated but having heard her explanation which seem to make sense to me, I respected her decision. Her reason for not entertaining my request was that she did not want to risk me of getting the side effect of the prescription such as Hyploglycemia (the only term that I could remember her saying as I my mind was grumbling at that time as could not accepted her decision of not giving me prescription) which is a result of low blood sugar. Now I have come to realize how Dr Munirah is one of the many doctors that hold through their Hippocratic oath - is an oath historically taken by doctors and other healthcare professionals swearing to practice medicine ethically. My confidence on her have grown even bigger after today.
Having taken her advice that it will be a long journey to healthy living, I must do something about it apart from the daily exercise that I had started since last week. I need to get a new weigher, to monitor my weight accurately. Must start to cut off my rice(carbohydrate) intake and considering the alternative such as spaghetti(yummy..), whole wheat bread, bihun, kueytiow (but must souppy dishes not fried).

On day 7 these are the summary
1.At night I step up my skipping to 740 repeats
2.I have taken 3 glass of teh peria for the day and for breakfast Teh o -totally sugar free in Mamak restaurant
3.For meal, breakfast mee sup, egg sandwich for lunch and dinner at 6.30 pm.
Having put my effort today, hopefully the result will be good.. Insya Allah
The next day I came slightly early to Kita Klinik, having learned from a few trips to the clinics earlier , that I would spot many MISC cadets and Shipping personnel came in earlier waiting for their medical checkup. Most of the time I see them dressed smartly for the checkup and they bring their backpack together. I supposed they attended some in-house trainings in Dayabumi that require them to be neatly dressed. I got to meet a cook who was also need to go through medical checkups. Hearing names being called up in the counter, most of the time I heard names which are not familiar to us Malaysian. I guess many Pinoys are being employed by us in the shipping industry. I also got to see a few Malaysians having my size doing the medical checkup and it kind of a relief to me to see them in the Klinik. Definitely they are the living evidence that people like us could live and work offshore. That was my deliberate assumptions, hoping Dr. Azahari could spot the trend.
When I reached the Klinik, it was quiet a relief that nobody else has come earlier than me. After registering at the counter, I made myself comfortable sitting on the comfy chair in the waiting area. While the attendant look for my records, one by one people entering the clinics and before I got to see the doctor, the room has been filled by visitors.
When my name was called up, suddenly I could feel the blood rushing through my head. As I entered the room, I saw the familiar face of Dr Azahari and saying Good Morning to me. He started by asking how I was doing lately and a few accomodating questions just to settle down my nerves. Having attended my case earlier, he first checked through my previous result of Hbda. This test was carried out to check my glucose level for the past 3 months, as it is the most accurate test to measure the glucose level. Dr Azahari later shared the result with me and he showed the result that my glucose reading for Hbda is at 7.1 . Well, based on the clinics standards I am confirmed a diabetics.The reading also pointed out that I am belonging to category >7 which states that the diabetic is in good control. I miss by 0.1 where I need to take medication in order to control the glucose level. For those in the band of 6-7 requires only control of diet and those below 6, is considered a non diabetic. Than the Doc checked my glucose level for the day, after not eating rice for more than 40hrs, free flow of teh peria, and countless number of skipping repeats, my reading was 6.60. It was better than last check in Klinik Kita (6.8), but worse than reading from Klinik Idzham that I got from day earlier(5.7).
Next the Doc wanted to check my BMI. I was informed earlier in the previous consultation that in order to safely work offshore I need to maintain my BMI at 31 and below. Last check I recorded BMI of 33.8 and today the BMI has reduced to 33 thanks to the 2 kg loss in the span of 7 days that I managed to get. Well that cheer me up a little for the day.

In pursuit of fitness II

This a the journey .....
When I first received the Appointment letter, my nerves keep telling me that I will have a long and torturous journey before I pen down my signature. I heard through friends that for those who wanted to work in O&G is required to be medically fit when undergone the Medical checkup. I guess it was not so worrying since I know I'm quite active. These are strong but pathetic reasons for that
1. playing X Box Kinect lately for the past several week. I bought it Last Raya with the initial intention to get replacement for my BlackBerry. In the end after watching a salesman in Wangsa Walk playing a few games on Kinect, my perception of those weirdo salesman selling Electronic gadgets has changed. He has introduced me to the world of Sweating Geeks. Without much thoughts I got the complete Set X Box kinect with few titles and everything charge it in my Visa
2.playing Badminton with my shift member twice a week. Though lost most of the games (with poor pairing) I managed to finish 4-5 sets in a week. Not bad for a 37-year old chap, the oldest among them.
3. Ummph..... no more reasons. That's about it la.

Roughneck at works .....in Miri

I have yet to embrace the full idea of blogging let alone starts blogging to make my cash register ringing.I just put my brave "hidden face" in the blogsphere knowing that my London English is not up to the standard, surely all my English teachers Mrs Sidhu, Mrs Hanizah would definitely put corrections on my grammar if they were to read entries in my blog.
It was quite a tough task to get a name for my blogs as if you want to name your first born baby. I want it to be easily remembered, catchy and above it all , it represent me on how I look at things. Often the times I read a lot of my friends blogs that really describe them very well and fit nicely the i.e Jumper's Playground, that tell about how my friend spent wisely his time with life and works, Between My Legs(Engku Emran's blogs), not as vivid as it sounds but worth naming it base on his passion for big bikes. After a very long toughts, I name it Roughnecksatworks.
At first I did not know what is the meaning of roughneck. I probably heard it somewhere in a film or movie. Oh yes, now I remember . It was in the Starship Troopers movie a name of a troop which are trained to fight the alien insect.The closest thing I know about anything relates to neck is the redneck. No, no never put your kids name Redneck or try call anybody in US by that name just to impress people on how red their necks are..It means (from Wikipedia) historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor white farmers. The Hillbillies are that kind of peoples fits nicely the description. Lucky I'm in Malaysia but the closest reference we have here is Orang Kampung, but the name does not bear a notorious meaning as Rednecks in US. Ok back to the roughnecks meaning, as usual I googled it and look into the meaning of it and according ever reliable source of Wikipedia it safely mean slang term for a person whose occupation is hard-manual labour, typically in a dangerous working environment. Well, hard-manual labour...it describe how I have been working hands on on all my assignments though hate it very much. I am famous for doing manual labour work when I was in Japanese Electro plating company working as Engineer. I remember a guy call me Jurutera berjiwa rakyat (People's Engineer) for doing laborious work of changing Copper anode alone during Preventive Maintenance. It was supposed to be done by my operators but often I helped them just to feel how it was being done. I realized it was a tough job cleaning almost 400 kg of Copper anodes but somehow i liked it very much because it made me sweats. How about dangerous working environment...Luckily , I live to tell you about it after working in Electroplating company for 9 years. How about if I tell you that Cyanide was a "play thing" in this company. An exposure of 100 ppm could send you 6 feet below underground. I heard a few fatal incidence in the company related to Cyanide leakages and suffice to say that you will suffer enough before you die if you inhaled excessively.
So, after deep thoughts I finally named my blog Roughneck at work and it describe very much of my interest and work that i've done. 1 year plus later, little that I know that it will point to things in the future that will change my career and life.
In the Wikipedia page there is a picture showing an oil man working on a drill. It did not trigger me very much on the picture but now suddenly things are appearing very much to my life recently. First, only recently in Aug I got a call from Petronas for an Interview for HSE Executive position. I could not remember when did I apply to it after dozens of dozens of my application were turned down. Before that I had lost my hope working for Petronas as It was my dream job to work there. I could remember that I had a photo clipping of Dr Mahathir overlooking the Petronas Twin Tower model when it was first officiated in 1993. I put the photo at my desk when I was studying at Sekolah Alam Shah during matriculation years showing how proud I am as a Malaysian that we would soon have the tallest building in the world.
I've gone through the interview on 12th August, rather it was term as Technical Assesment in Petronas without much difficulty as I am an SME on the Safety Subject. In the end of the interview' i was kind given the assurance that I am suitable for the post and they would reply in due time. Waiting anxiously and after a few courtesy calls to Ms Maizurah, the personnel who attended my offer, I received a formal Offer Letter on the employment. Well the surprise did not end there. Inside the letter, I was informed that I will be posted at Miri, 1000 km away from my home.But on second thought 1000 km is not that far if you convert it to the time Light travels, it will be zillion of zillion of light seconds. Last check in the net, I have not come across with news that the Star Trek transporter has been commercially available in the market. So I have to make do with the only feasible mean of transport these days which is through Belon (Aircraft in Sarawak dialect) .

2011...what a year

After more than a year I finally got a chance to go back to my blog just to see the look at it. It's like having spent your semester in U and are now back for semester holiday. Well not much of a difference after 1 year. There is still only one follower to my blog, same emotions when reading through my entries and same page layout. But definitely a lot of things come by in my life for the past 1 year.
Career wise it was a memorable year in a sense that I never got my paycheck increased, thanks to the terrible Performance Appraisal evaluated by my Boss, Jeffrey Lawrence. I was told it was due to my poor performance in managing everything from routine works and my projects. But deep inside him I know it was not due to my incompetency, but rather he was a little bit goyang with his boss Adnan who has his eyes on me. I had some issue earlier with my boss, together with my partner in crime Yoong, however Yoong took a smart decision of requesting for transfer to Non Dairy Creamer plant. He smartly come out a few good reasons like wanting to learn new things and his need for extra money but to the fact that is know between him and me was that we could not work with JL. I think that how it started and its why I do not get the support from my boss whenever issue arise and my performance was being discuss among the Mgrs.However time passed by, Yoong has resigned and living his life to the fullest, Fadly my other First Line Manager colleague already resigned abruptly leaving his TPM secrets and "baggages" to Calvin, Adnan the Factory Mgr has transferred to Turkey and it was left to myself to deal with JL. Everyday I came to work hiding my long face and worked with my boss. I was merely acting(I'm using the skill I learned in EDMM on how to adjust your personalities when needed) whenever I bumped into him just to get back to his radar and resume the task given to me. However all the GSTD, DMAIC, Shift routine and all the TPM thingy was done accordingly. I involved more with the shopfloor while maintaing the same feelings that I have toward my Boss. Things become better when two new FLMs Hasrizal and Thamil joining in early 2011. They sort of becoming my Pressure Relief Valves where I can now transferred the production control to them. I have also asked from my boss to transfer me to Application Group just to make known my intention to him. But he gave me reason that I have to honour my "contract" as First Line Manager for 5 years before request for a transfer. After 6 months under probation then came the review of Appraisal, and damn it was a sweet one to me. The boss evaluated that I have improved and back to normal and he even shooked my hands after the review session ended. I finally redeemed myself and to me it was nothing special as I had endured the same experience before when i was with MSMM Electronics. Same sequence of events, same issue related to boss-employee relationship. At the end, my true nature and work ethics prevailed. I'll definitely look forward for future to come without turning back to yesterday.