House Build Project 2009 + 2010

I have a series of hotel reviews to be posted here. But before I did that and leave you wondering what the heck I was doing in Borneo lately, first and foremost, I would like to tell you about our flagship project. It is called House Build (HB) Project, held in conjunction with the World Habitat Day 2009 onwards.

The HB Pilot Project was introduced in 2009. The aim of this project is to provide comfortable shelters for hardcore urban poor families whose dilapidated houses were in serious need of repair. A team of international and local volunteers spent one to three months repairing the houses in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah; Kuching, Sarawak and Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu.

We worked in partnership with an international NGO who is in-charge of mobilising groups of volunteers (local and international) to execute the construction work on site. We just pay for the building material and those volunteers will repair or re-built the house at no cost.

I was actively involved in monitoring two projects in Kota Kinabalu, in which I have to flew to KK on monthly basis and also a few trips to Kuching projects (at the final stage), just to make sure the houses were built according to the specification before the handover ceremony by The Hon Minister to the owner held in January 2010.

I don’t involved in site visit for 2010 projects.

Anyway, kudos to the volunteers! They nailed it although it was so difficult to construct new roofing system for the dilapidated houses built on the water in KK. They don’t have scaffolding or any other technical equipments (they are volunteers, remember?). They also manage to repair two houses in Terengganu during the monsoon season in spite both houses were technically “submerged” in the flood. And the best part is, they pulled it off with a VERY LIMITED BUDGET per house.

Any company with extra RM20k to spend, and wishes to be involved in HB Project 2011, as part of your CSR programme (and get tax exemption summore), contact me!

Kota Kinabalu projects

House 01

House 02

Kuala Terengganu projects

House 01

House 02

My paper clips

A conversation last week at Ali Maju Bistro. During lunch hour.

This guy : Hey, what happened to your paper clip?

Me : What paper clip?

This guy : YOUR paper clip…. (stressing on YOUR)

Me : My ...paper ...clips... are... fine… (It just happened that I had transferred all paper clips inside a purple smiggle steel box before lunch, so, it should be fine, right?) err... why?

This guy : Fine? You win?

Me : Huh?

..... (awkward silence) .....

I felt stupid not knowing what else to say. And I think he felt stupid too.. maybe he thought he was asking the question to the wrong person.

SUDDENLY...

Me : OHHHH!!!!! That paper clip!!!! OMG that was so long ago! I totally forgot about that already.

(Note : Related entry here)

This guy : So, you win?

Me : Yes and No.

In total, me and my partner (he was my junior in KAED), Shahnizam received health products hampers, 3 trophies, certificates, 4 spa vouchers worth RM380 each and 4 tickets for whitewater rafting in Perak. Why 4 everything? Because the maximum number for member per group is four. But we determined to proceed with only TWO.

Well, you guessed it right, whitewater rafting tickets goes to my partner and I got 4 spa vouchers! Go paper clips!

Celebrating Friendship

Me and my email friends (Zoora and Mye) at our design studio. In 2003? I can’t remember. I snap the photo from an old album, hence the reflection.

I don’t talk much with them during my study in IIUM. One or twice a week maybe? But nowadays, we’ll be exchanging around 20-30 emails every single day. OMG, they are my best buddies online!! We talked about everything, kids, breastfeeding, recycling, family, food, fashion, green living, technology, did I mention fashion?, internet, everything and fashion. My hours spent in the office will be meaningless without them :p

I missed having people like them (and all of you, x-KAEDians!!) in my life right now. The creative, like-minded people. The one I can start conversation with.. “Do you still remember Pulau Tuba?” and have a great laugh afterwards.

My studiomates had arranged a few gatherings here and there for a stroll down memory lane but we end up chasing our kids and changing diapers most of the time. I guess, life goes on.

World Habitat Day 2010 fever

As usual, International Unit will be pretty occupied for the World Habitat Day celebration in October. I have not sleep for 3 days and for the past four weeks, I came back from my office after midnight. (lucky I've spent 6 years in architecture school where they trained us to be fully awake 24/7). Thanks to my lovely husband who brings the kids to the office to keep me company every night (I have my own room now, y'all!!). It will be our routine until 6th October 2010. Right now, I am struggling with work and non-stop makan-makan Raya invitation.

This is what I did for the past 3 hours. I called it MyHabitat. but I dont think I am going to use it for any booklet / backdrop / tag design. So, I just post it here hoping it could inspire anyone out there. Now, I need to put my thinking hat (again) and hopefully I could produce 3 or 4 backdrop & booklet designs by 6am. 3 more hours to go. Good luck to me.

(All silhouettes were Googled. Credit to the owner)

Update :

4.35am - I have completed 3 backdrop designs in less than 2 hours (well, the design of the booklet will depend on the final backdrop, so let's not wasting time designing 3 booklet options). And I later found out my MyHabitat is suitable for name tag design due to its simplicity and dynamic shape, but I am still contemplating on the colour.

OK. Good night for me. Need to wake up in 1+ hour. Zzzzz...

Update :NO. We are not going to use any of these at all. I will post the final design later. Thanks to Mala for helping me with the backdrop.

This is the actual design used for the celebration - for booklet, backdrop and newspaper article (here).

AND THIS IS THE BEST PART - UNHABITAT use my design for their promotional brochure (this entry).

I AM SO HAPPY!

Ops! TERSASUL

We found a good way to release our tense in the office! (I am PN)
(This is my board)
(This is Amylia's)
When we ran out of white board, anything else would do ;p

Nabil is preparing for the green

oh boy he's been working very hard!

Nabil's first drawing of Mama

In December 2008, Nabil (was then 3yo) drew ME.

LATTE!!

I have trouble changing the link colour (which was suddenly changed from yellow to dark blue) for this blog. After a few attempts, I decided to go for Latte background instead to compliment the dark blue. I HOPE I LIKE IT (trying...trying...)

In the mean time, I will try to change the background back to dark grey because some highlighted font would be hard to read on Latte.

Keep on reading.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Muhammad Nazreen Syazwan!

remember!

As a mother, I need to memorise a lot of stuff. My personal things, family, (nucleus and extended), my work, study, clubs, my business, my hubby’s (plus in-laws’ : anniversaries, birthdays, fav colour, u name it) and not to forget, everything related to my kids. Their bank accounts, MyKid number, insurance, education plan, class schedule, syllabus (so I know what they need to study for their exams), their fav food, colour, clothes, size and where I usually hide their magic color, my make-up set, toy guns and those golden arch toys with an irritating sound.

Recently I have to add these to my HAVE-TO-REMEMBER list :

(pic from the net)

I need higher viewership for my competition entries!

Guys, pls view these a few times…. I need the highest viewership to win the Special Award!! Anyway, for those of you who didn’t know about this…. Here you go : I joined an Innovation Challenge. We are required to produce a 3-mins video to show the best solution based on the challenge statement - “Make your organization/workplace greener by using paper clip in your solution”.

Pls view EACH VIDEO FIFTY TIMES (50x) :

Green Pledge

Green Building

Red Paper Clip

Pls pls pls.

Important note : THE VIDS ARE KINDA FUNNY, really. WE MADE THESE IN A FEW DAYS – brainstorming, storyboard, casting, shooting, editing, model-making, etc. Eh, only a few hours after office je actually. We have something else in our mind but it turn out to be different due to time constraint. Huhu.. but, as long as my staffs were having a good time, it worth it….walaupun terasa malu terlibat secara direct dan menghadapi risiko menjadi bahan lawak selama setahun di rumah.

Remember, 50x ye.

Thanks! *lol*

Family Trip

We went for this amazing family trip long time ago. Five of us. October 2009. My mum sponsored the air ticket for the kids (Thank you!). I really want to blog about this but … (ok ok same old lame reason)... I am pretty occupied with work. Anyway, here are some photos of our last day in KK.

We stayed @ Le Meridien Kota Kinabalu for 5 days 4 nights. Nice hotel with excellent service. HUGE ROOM with a DVD player, only 2-3 minutes walking distance to the famous KK seafood stalls by the sea (oh, dont get me started with the hotel review).
Nazreen has a strange chemistry with food / restaurant. He can sleep practically anywhere during a meal.


Food? Oh, HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THE SEAFOOD IN KK??!!



This was when the camera went crazy. Luckily it was on our way back to KL.. (cap : Nabil was enjoying his chocolate muffin – note to MAS caterer : muffin anda sangat hancur dan berterabur. Tetapi ia sangat sedap)

We have DSLR y'all!!

At last.

After two years of contemplation and after two broken compact digital cameras - one AT KLIA and another one in the flight TO KLIA - we bought a DSLR.

(there must be something very wrong with the chemistry between digital camera and KLIA....) (...and me).

Now I can take fine photos. I have more reason to blog.

Lazy Sunday : Lazy pants

Remember that evergreen musical film about this pretty postulant - the governess of the good-looking Captain's children – who dressed all seven of them in beautifully-sewn play-clothes made of old drapes? They sang and run happily on the mountainside, climbed trees along the roadside (still singing) and got kantoi by their dad afterwards? Ok ok... here is the clue :


I came across a stack of old cushion covers in the cabinet last weekend. They are so adorable and I couldnt stop myself to make these for my child :o)

Skill : Basic. Duration : 10 minutes/pair (I skip the edging part). Edging would took less than 5 minutes per pair, but to take it out from the cabinet... clear the table...look for extension wire... adjust the threads while holding Nazran - who will be jumping in joy and try to climb up the table when he see new things....that would take some times.

I believe there is nothing wrong with turning old stuff into something wearables.

Little Book of HowTos

In (this post), I wrote "As usual, I jot down the process in my Little Book of HowTos. I'll post some snapshots of the lil book later".

So, here you go (read without prejudice ye). I better publish it quickly before I feel stupid showing these to others.

(EDITED)
I've deleted my cookie recipe.

HOTEL REVIEW 03 : PULLMAN, Kuching

I went to Kuching, Sarawak in January 2010 and stayed at Pullman Hotel. A newly-launched 5-star hotel located on the hill, near to Hilton. The overall colour scheme is nicely-coordinated = a good combination of silver and white, with a dash of orange, and red. Since the furniture are very ZEN-like, it is good to be extra careful because they have sharp edges. I knocked my toe on Day Two and it bleeds like crazy. I knocked the same spot with the VERY SAME TOE again on Day 3. Ugh.

The food was GREAT. I had a little chat with the chef and he informed me that the food (and its preparation) are HALAL. A good point for those halal-conscious people like me!

Furoshiki

I always volunteered to be the one to scout around for the best farewell (or newborn) gifts for my officemates / club / circle of friends (a very good reason to go shopping with my family!!).

And I always end up wrapping [most of] them in fabric, instead of wrapping papers. Since I really love to sew, so I have tons of fabric (fat square, scraps, designers') at home. I like fabric because it is very dynamic, flexible and reusable. You can always use it or turn it into something else. (or you can give it back to me – to wrap other gifts). It is also the best way to go green. So, let's furoshiki!!

Habitat fever is here!!

I am pretty occupied with photo editing and compiling old documents for Habitat Blog - a blog about Malaysia's programmes and activities for the World Habitat Day (WHD) celebration every year since my office is the National Focal Point for United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Malaysia.

In 2010, we going to have 10 programmes/activities (and we only left with FOUR people after July!). You can read it in the blog after it being launched in July 2010. This is the slide I designed for the recent Habitat committee meeting. You can see the official WHD theme/logo for 2010 - Better City, Better Life.

Sneak peak - Habitat Blog (http://habitat.kpkt.gov.my/) - Click after 15th July 2010!

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