I am overweight

After eating too much durian and buah isu for the past one month, I checked my BMI.

Weight : 76.8 kg
Height : 1.65 metre

BMI was calculated as 28.21. Overweight. Sigh..

Wish I can blame it all on the consumption of durian and buah isu.

I had hard time restraining myself having  breakfast with high carbohydrate. Without all these flour-based dish, there is not much options left in Marudi.

Kampua at the stall under the big tree. I went to this stall quite frequent though the taste was nothing to shout of.

Marudi kuey tiaw next to Mulu Hotel. Locals said this was not the best aroung in Marudi but to me, it was unique. When I leave Marudi one day for good, this would probably one of Marudi's nostalgia to me.

Kampua or mee hoon kolok with additional roasted duck in HK Restaurant. The juicy, flavourful, crispy skin was excellent. I enjoyed the fowl thoroughly.

 Or char siew meat.

Breakfast choices were limited. There was nothing to look forward to. Except the roast duck of course.

Hence, losing weight should be too difficult for me. I tried many times. Exercises. Keeping to at least 10 000 steps a day. Limited myself to just fruits for dinner. I did not succeed in getting thinner.

I need more motivation to keep my weight all the way down to 63 kg.

Tummy oh tummy, kenapa engkau besar?

Jalan Marudi-Miri

I am a happy man today. Wait.. Happy would be a mild word. I am ecstatic! Full of life. The Miri-Marudi road is potholes-filled no more. Woohoo.. I was so surprised. In a matter of two days only, the road contractor managed to fill in all the potholes throughout the entire road stretching from the bridge at Sg Arang till ferry point. They even managed to smoothen the whole road with their good old road rollers.

Start-off pothole-less road at ferry point

A closer look.

We took 18 minutes to reach ferry point from Sg Arang's bridge compared to usual 45 minutes. Without the nauseating, hateful, tossing around experience. Finally, the awaited day arrived. The improvement came just days after CMS Roads's press release saying they would be 'pulling out all the stops' to help every road users.CMS Roads Sdn Bhd promised to 'compact subgrade and laying a stone base from the ferry end of the road with an additional 1 km completed' in a period of just 3 weeks.

A great round of applause to CMS Roads. True to their words, the road is progressing very well.

The road contractor had been piling up hill of stones near the ferry point since a month ago.

Music to my ears. Soon, I can drive myself to work and home every day. No more early-waking up drama. No more virtual video conferencing with my girl.

It's pouting face-to-face party time soon.

Yahoo...

Insomnia in Marudi

When I started out in Marudi, I spent many sleepless nights. I was finding ways of increasing quality works in my workplace. I was thinking of better solutions to many problems plaguing the laboratory. I was gung ho about changing people's mindset. Stuporness. The great urge of falling asleep. I was losing my mind but work kept pushing me to move forward.

Things started to change when there was a new boss coming in. At a time, things got so bad that I made a police report. I made complaint to Public Complaint Bureau. Reality hit me hard. One fine day, I realise that the system that I am in, does not appreciate my good deeds. Nothing can be done when the system is filled with little Napoleons. 

I started to let go

Last Friday, I woke up at 3.55 a.m. That was a weird feeling. I hardly woke up at that ungodly hour except on Mondays when I got ready for my Marudi trip. I got up to freshen myself. I thought of what to do at such hour. After the next twenty minutes, I saw myself standing right in the middle of Marudi town. Right in the middle of the road.I was facing the Dataran Marudi with the Regatta boat replica at its end.

To my left, sense of  emptiness was in the air.

To my right, the same feeling was gripping me.

To my back, the white, four storey building lighted with its glaring spotlights had lost its glory days. Mulu hotel was sharing my sense of loneliness.

.
I walked aimlessly. I stood in front of Ah Pong shop. The infamous breakfast place where people will be flocking to buy its Marudi bread and buns. It was yet to be opened.

I walked towards the wharf. The owners of the nice kolok mee place right under the big tree had started doing their trades.

No sign of the fishermen coming in from the upper river. Much contrary to the days when I just started work in Marudi more than three years ago.

The vehicles used to transport their catches from the pontoon to the wharf had seen better days.

I stood there, marvelling the sky at the crack of dawn. I felt happier. Sunlight was filling the sky. Gazing toward the illuminated clouds, I thought of my Mum. Mummy's hometown. Did she enjoy the sunrise as I was doing? What was her life been while growing up in this deserted town?

My tummy was growling. I walked towards the market.

For a good bowl of char zhu mieh.

Locals claimed the Foochow noodle dish in the market was the best in town. I could not agree more. With that 400 calories in my digestive system, I cast off the soiness of insomnia in my life.

2018 New Year Resolutions

It's back to work in Marudi again after much drinking, eating and merry making throughout the last week of December 2017. The horrible year passed just like that and I am excited going on to year 2018! The dream of becoming a stay at home dad might just become a reality for me. The thought of not getting up at freaking four in the morning to catch the five-o'clock Hilux transport every Mondays is excitingly been waiting for. Even the feeling of going to work in this dreaded place in unbearable. I am dragging my feet to get my attires ready for Marudi trip every week.

I shamefully admitted I had have too much of durians. The great ones. Nothing substandard ones shall enter my palate. I am going off tangent now. I want to talk about my 2018 New Year Resolutions.

Financially, I am not doing too good despite bringing home RM4,000 a month. A thousand goes to pay the utilities bills, another one goes to pay my Marudi's expenses, another goes to pay for my boys' chauffeur's salary and some miscellaneous expenses. Despite not drinking alcoholic drinks, not smoking, no clubbing, no buying video games, no buying magazines, hardly buying clothes and shoes, I am left with a couple of not-too-good hundreds ringgits. I, however do buy Malaysian shares. I lost two thousand of ringgits in year 2016. And break even in year 2017. The initial seed money would have give me a quite substantial amount of money if only I parked the money in the fixed deposits. All the efforts of doing great job in my current career had gone unappreciated.

So, I aspire to take leave from my current job to gain back my confidence. My self value. My life goal.

I want to build a better family relationship. As I come home only every Friday, I did not get to see my family most of the week. I miss the days of playing cards with my boys. I want to see more of my girl walking around the house as she is getting hold of herself better. I want to know who is the bully in Darrien's school. I want to know if my boy is playing beside the dirty stagnant drains. I want to know who is my boys' friends. I want to write more Chinese characters with my son. I want to hear Jacob's reading his sentences in Malay, English and Mandarin. I cannot do all these activities since I am away from home.