Leah’s Cafe

Friends and family members often ask me how to start a blog, and the teacher in me always enjoy explaining it, but it is a lot of information to take in over lunch. It also takes a while to process and understand all the terminology used, especially if they are not Internet savvy.

A few of my friends have taken the trouble to have me sit down for a few hours, going through the steps by steps and they taking down notes. At the end, some decided that starting a blog is not what they want to do, and some find picking a topic to blog about a challenge. Guess blogging is not everyone’s cup of tea!

My friend PL was here for a visit over the weekend. She shared about the health benefit of fruit enzyme and how it’s helping her with stress related ailments that both of us share in common. She brought some fruit enzyme that she made to share with my family. She mixed with some water and made a cup of drink for me. It taste quite nice and it caused so much gases that night, it’s embarrassing!

Many of us probably have heard and read about this fruit enzyme as a few organic stores have been promoting it quite a bit lately. I remember reading about a Thai alternative medicine practitioner named Dr. Rosukon Poompanwong who teaches people to make enzyme from kitchen waste.

Apparently, they are a few Malaysians who went to visit the health farm runs by Dr. Rosukon in Thailand. They came back promoting the making of fruits enzyme and garbage enzyme widely in Klang Valley. PL went to one of those classes to learn how to make fruit enzymes. Knowing PL is always eager to share what she learns with me. I asked her to do a demo on how to make fruit enzyme at home.

And this is the product we have, two jars of apples enzyme and one jar of dragon fruits enzyme from twenty green apples, two dragon fruits, six lemons and about 500 g of organic sugar.

(It started as a full jar but I forgot to take a picture. This is how it looked like after two days. The osmosis was drawing the juices out and fermentation has begun. Can see bubbles forming and smell like citrus wine.)

The skins and seeds of the fruits do not go to waste, they go in a jar to make garbage enzyme that can be used as fertilizer, disinfectant and many more. (You can also make this from kitchen waste.)

You must be thinking, yuck, the fermentation of this garbage must be really smelly! Believe it or not, this bottle of garbage actually smell pretty good, a bit similar to the citrus based deodorant you have in the car!

Since the expedite request has been approved by National Visa Center on July 24, the file will be sent to KL consular by DHL express mail, hopefully by July 25. It will take 3-4 business days in transit. KL consular is an efficient consular with no backlog. Under normal circumstances, should expect to receive a packet of forms from KL consular within 1-2 weeks. Some consulates i.e. GuangZhuo and Montreal are so behind with their workloads, the files get store in the warehouse for 3-6 months, before they do anything!

We have already downloaded the forms from the internet and filled up. They are two forms: the DS-230 immigrant visa application form and I-864 affidavit of support form.

The beneficiary now the applicant (that’s me) needs to submit the DS-230 immigration visa application form together with the supporting documents upon receiving the packet from the consular. The supporting documents include the original long birth certificate from JPN, marriage certificate, Malaysian Certificate of Good Conduct, one US sized passport photo and photocopy of the data page of my Malaysian passport.

The petitioner now the sponsor (that’s the big boy) needs to submit the I-864 affidavit of support with all the supporting documents that prove his current income and employment. He needs to mail his IRS tax transcripts for the past three years, pay stubs for the past six months, letter from his employer stating his position, starting date and term of employment (part time or full time).

The affidavit of support is a contract between the big boy and Uncle Sam (that’s the US government), he has to guarantee that me will not become a public charge. If the immigrant has to claim mean-tested social benefits, then Uncle Sam has the right to recover the sum from the sponsor. The affidavit is binding as long as we are alive, even if in the event of divorce! In fact, very few conditions exclude him from the obligations of this contract, one of them is death, second is if I become US citizen (which I don’t plan to at this moment in time) or I have worked long enough to earn enough credits to be eligible for social security. In another word, the big boy is making a big financial commitment, imposed and enforced by Uncle Sam. :-)

After the consular goes through the the DS-230 package and I-864 package submitted, they will request for more documents if anything is missing. Else, I should receive another package which consists of the interview appointment letter and information on medical checkup. Then will have to go for medical check up, X-ray and vaccinations before the interview.

For the interview, would have to bring all the documents for proofs of bona fide marriage. Since we have been married for three years and KL is not a notorious consular that rejects immigrant visas for spouses with frivolous reasons, we are not too worry about the interview. But, we still have to prepare all the proofs in case they ask to see them. We have emails, letters, cards, photos, telephone bills, insurance letter, bank statements, etc. They are just too many if I would to print all of them, in order to save a few more trees, I will only select some of this to print out. :-)

The US, like Australia, has a similar two-part process for its citizen to unite with immediate family. First, the US citizen needs to file a petition to access his eligibility to sponsor a family member. Then, when the petition is approved, the beneficiary of the petition has to submit an application for the immigrant visa.

The big boy filed an I-130 petition for me in March 15. The petition was forwarded to California Service Center and he received a notice that said the petition was received on March 17 with a priority date of March 24.

We didn’t hear anything after that. I went for a surgery in April and went through a cancer scare throughout April and May. After much persuasion, the big boy then filed an expedite request on June 5. The expedite request was approved on June 24 and subsequently the I-130 petition was approved on July 9.

The approved I-130 then was forwarded and received by National Visa Center (NVC) on July 15. The big boy filed an expedite request with NVC on July 16 and it’s approved on July 24. The file will be forwarded to KL and continue with the second part of the immigration process.

The second part of the process is to have the beneficiary of the petition, that’s me, to submit an application for the immigrant visa. Hopefully, the second part is going to go fast, much faster than the first part!

It has been two weeks since the California Service Center approved the I-130 petition on July 9. The file took one week to transit from California to National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire. (You wonder how on earth files are still moving around physically in this computer age.)

However, NVC seems to move really fast, they received the file on June 15, we filed an expedite request on July 16, they generated the choice of agent and AOS fee bill on July 17, and this forms are sent out immediately, the big boy has received them on Monday July 21. The best thing happened today July 24, they approved the expedite request!

Which means NVC is forwarding the file to KL immediately. The normal procedure is to pay fees to NVC, wait for the fee processing, then submit documents and wait for documents verification, and that can take another 3-6 months before an interview appointment can be granted!

With the expedite request being approved, we are paying fees and submit documents to the KL consular. Since there is no backup of immigrant visa applications at KL consular, it should moves very fast from now onwards.

Bravo! Alright, at least we know not all government agencies are as rotten as USCIS. This jokers have caused much stress in the last four months, certainly would need wrinkle cream for all the lines result from that! After four months of dealing with the jokers who work at turtle speed, am impressed with the efficiency of NVC!

One of the proofs of bona fide marriage we are required to show to the consular during immigrant visa interview is the co-mingling of our finances. It can be joint ownership of property or lease, life insurance with the other party as beneficiary, name on spouse’s health insurance, joint saving or checking account.

The only document we have right now is a letter from insurance company that shows my name on his health insurance plan. Though we have been married for three years but we do not have a joint bank account. You will be surprised, opening a bank account can be a rather complex attempt without proper paper. We have been separated in two countries for the past one and half years, we couldn’t add each other to our bank accounts because the bank required us to be present physically to produce the relevant identity!

The big boy has a checking account that comes with a debit card, he gives me the debit card to withdraw money in Malaysia. His bank statements showed all the withdrawals on ATM machines in Malaysia and with the ATM withdrawal slips, may be they can be used as proof.

The debit card works out quite well, the only setback is: it charges a fee for every ATM withdrawal. It actually added up to be quite a bit over the past one year. We could have save some money if we know WaMu has a Free  checking account that allows free ATM cash withdrawals worldwide.

USCIS may not be efficient and its workers incompetent, but the ultimate culprit is the idiot husband who procrastinates and makes silly mistake such as omitting the marriage certificate and have his wife’s name wrong on the forms!

It took him three months to mail out a two-page form that already filled up except his signature. Somehow he managed to mixed up the form and submitted a draft copy he printed out earlier which has my name wrong! You have to salute him for his ability to screw up. I think he has allergy to paperwork!

It took one week for USCIS to generate the letter requesting for evidence(the missing marriage certificate), one week for the letter to arrive, one week for the response to find its way to the system, that was a total of three weeks of delay. We would have gotten the approval for I-130 petition in the middle of June if not because of the missing document.

The I-130 petition has been approved for a week now. While he was taking his time to figure out what he supposed to do next, I went ahead to email an expedite request on his behalf. However, after talking to the live operator at NVC, to my horror, found out the error in my name has not amended before the file was forwarded to NVC.

My fear is: the expedite request will not be looking at until the error in name is amended. I panicked and emailed a request for amendment on his behalf. After all this being done, he mailed the amendment letter by snail mail because he said the live operator told him they process mail faster than email. I hope the duplicate is not going to delay the process further.

The confirmed procrastinator is taking his sweet time in everything. It took him a few weeks to unpack the laptop we recently purchase. After moving in the new place for two months since May, he still live with the unpacked moving boxes! He also never throw away anything, he keep all every piece of paper. He still keep all the old shirts and Baseball Gloves that he will not use in those boxes. He certainly has tons of garbage waiting for me to clear, that’s for sure. By the rate it goes, I will be 64 by the time this whole cleaning process completes!

We have waited four months (And, that’s an expedited processing! Many people waited longer and for some complicated cases, for years) for a piece of paper that gives green light to apply for an immigrant visa.

As we were waving goodbye to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and getting ready to say hello to National Visa Center(NVC), discovered USCIS gave us a goodbye gift - they never amend the mistake on my name though multiple service requests were filed to amend it and we were told it will be amended during adjudication.

The nightmare has turned into reality - the mistake has propagated to NVC now. Great!!

It’s very important to have the right name because the visa is going to be issued in that name! Have to send another request to amend the mistake! Hopefully people who work at NVC are more competent than those jokers at USCIS! They do seem like they are more efficient because within a week, they have already assigned a case number and have a person called “Supervisor Sue” whom we know is processing the expedite request!

Though the I-130 petition has been approved for more than a week and we have received a hard copy of the approval notice, the online system still shows the case as “pending”! Doesn’t that make you wonder how much they still rely on manual work? If they want to be an efficient organization, employing the right IT solution is a necessity. They need to re-evaluate their IT management or hire an IT consulting firm among the NY IT Services to do a major revamp!

One of the civil documents that needed for the immigrant visa application is the “Certificate of Good Conduct”. It’s a background check or police clearance required to show no criminal record. You can get the certificate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, either in person or by mail.

They took about 2-3 months to produce the certificate previously. It was mainly required by people who were migrating. But, in recent years, many countries like Australia and US have requested this for people who applied for student visas too. That means they are a lot more people who apply for this certificate now. So, they changed the procedure, we just have to do a statutory declaration and have some big shot or class A government servants signed the forms, they can produce the certificate based on the declaration and it can be done on the same day!

Have already done the statutory declaration and have one of my teachers signed the paper in May. But I waited for the I-130 petition to get approved before getting it because the certificate has a validity date and it can expire.

The Ministry of Foreign Affair is at the Wisma Putra in Putrajaya. I decided to drive up there today. This is my first time to the new administrative capital, don’t have any idea how Wisma Putra looks like, armed with an address that says it’s at Precinct 2, Putrajaya, I drove there by myself!

After much ado about nothing, left my parents’ house at 9.15 a.m. Exit the North South highway at Kajang and reached Putrajaya township at about 11.00 a.m. The Wisma Putra is not too far off, but I missed the sign behind some trees and drove into a maze of office buildings. (are you surprised? Malaysian poor road signs and my sense of direction aare not very good combination!!) Gosh, I have no idea there are hundreds of office buildings that have the same color tone and all look the same (at least to me) !

I stopped and asked two Malay girls, they pointed to a hill and said “Tu, yang bangunan putih dengan bumbung hijau atas bukit tu” (There, the white buildings with green roofs that sit on that hill) Can you see?

By the time I reached the Wisma Putra and found the consular office, it was nearly 11.45 a.m. Though my queue number was called within 5 minutes for document submission, have to wait for them to produce the “Certificate of Good Conduct” after that. They were quite a lot of youngsters who looked like students and a few adults were waiting for the same.

By 12.00 p.m, they were still about 10 people ahead of me who were waiting in line. I knew I would have to go back there to collect the certificate after lunch hour. Didn’t realize the consular office is closed from 12.30 - 2.00 p.m. (The office hours are 8.30-12.30 p.m and 2.30 -4.00 p.m, they only works 5 1/2 hours!!)

How to kill the 2 hours? decided to call a friend who works about 25 minutes away, we went out for lunch and catch up.

Went back to Wisma Putra at 2.45 p.m and got this certificate:

RM60 for gasoline, RMRM27.80 for toll, RM6 fee for statutory declaration and RM20 for the certificate, all for the pleasure of getting a certificate that says “The Government of Malaysia finds her to be a person of Good Conduct“! Got to go all length to show Uncle Sam that I am a good girl ! :-)

The I-130 petition was filed in March, after three months of staying in the dark hole. The big boy filed an expedite request for the I-130 processing on 5 June, hope to speed things up a bit.

Five weeks after filing an expedite request, the petition for an immigrant visa is finally approved today! Does that mean I can buy an air ticket and get on a plane now? No way! The I-130 petition basically is an initial filing to determine eligibility of the petitioner to file an immigrant visa for an  immediate relative, which is spouse in our case.

The approved I-130 is now being forwarded to National Visa Center (NVC) for further processing. We are filing another expedite request so that NVC will forward the file to KL immediately.

Meanwhile, the big boy has to pay more fees, submit more documents and sign a contract with Uncle Sam that he is going to be financially responsible for me. The contract is called an affidavit of support (AOS). It means if I ever become a public charge i.e. claim unemployment or any mean tested benefits, Uncle Sam can recover the payments from the big boy!

When the file is forwarded to KL, I have to submit an application form and some civil documents i.e birth certificate, marriage certificate and police clearance. This step is going to be fast as I already have all the documents, ready to go out. Then, I would need to go for a medical check up and take some vaccinations. The last one will be the interview.

My conservative estimation- all this will take at least another one and half months! It may take longer if the big boy does not submit the AOS documents in time!!

Do you experience problem with streamASS in the last few weeks? One of the reasons that all my blogs have not been updated much in the last few weeks. It’s just so frustrating, we have to call the 100 customer service numbers six times in the last three weeks!

Though was able to connect to the Internet off and on, but the speed is so turtle, it’s a waste of time trying to get online. The customer service person asked me to test the speed. Yeah, when I can load the pages then I will test it! Have you ever experienced this: you open up the browser, went to take a nap, came back two hours later, the page has not been loaded yet!!

Though the technicians are quite efficient, they almost always show up the next day when we called on a weekday, the same old problem kept coming back after a storm. We were told they have to replace the faulty ports. How to work with Internet that has more downs than ups in a week, some more have to change pots and pans six times in three weeks!

Not that we have a choice, this lousy service provider is the ONLY provider in this boondocks. We need another competitor who is more competent!!

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Our house here has three bathrooms, but no bathtub. The new house we are going to live has one thousand and one bathroom, but has a bathtub in the small bathroom. The big boy took a picture of the bathtub and he thinks I am going to like it.

Who doesn’t like to soak in a bubble bath after a hard day work? However, when people get older and are not as flexible anymore, getting in and out of the traditional kind of bathtub can be dangerous.

That’s why they have this kind of walkin tub at some of the retirement communities. You can walk in and out of the tub, and some model will have a seat to sit on. You don’t have to be afraid of not able to get up or slip when trying to get out! So, getting old is not an excuse not to take a bath! :-)

I have been getting a lot of inquiries from friends and neighbors on when am I leaving for IL, the big boy too received a fair amount of that. Well, we need Uncle’s Sam approval before we can be united. It’s difficult for others to understand, why it takes so long to get a spouse of an American citizen over to live with her husband. And the silly law that assumed everyone has immigrant intend unless proven otherwise. Yes, it takes more than buying an air ticket and hop on the next plane!

It doesn’t help that we are dealing with one of the most inefficient governmental agencies in the world. These bureaucrats are jokers, they have been covering their butts with old excuses like security check for delays and backlogs. After 911, “security” has been the magic word to cover all the backlogs due to an arcane system and incompetent work force.

In this computer age, it’s hard to imagine an agency that handles more than one million permanent residencies application alone still uses an outdated and arcane system which involve transferring files around physically! Our initial petition is processed at a service center in CA , when the petition is approved, the file will be forwarded to the National Visa Center (NVC) in NH, then it’s forwarded to the consulate oversea. It’s not uncommon that files get lost or misplaced in all this moving around!!

The irony amidst all this is: it takes only a week or two to get a visa for a spouse of a non citizen H1B worker! You see, in the capitalist world, the corporates who have the financial power to hire lobbyists to influence the lawmakers get ahead of the games. Family reunification stays at the bottom of priorities because they do not have many people who look out for their rights. Work based petition can be expedited by paying for premium fee. Many people would be willing to give up their gold coin for faster reunification with their spouse and family. But there is no way to expedite a family petition unless it’s life and death situation! I really feel sorry for many families (some with young children) who have been separated for years while waiting for the visa to be granted.

It has been closed to three months since we filed the papers, except for a notice of receipt, we are kept in the black hole not knowing what happened to the papers. We tried to file an expedite request based on my medical condition that needs further attention. The big boy had even involved the congressman’s office to chase them down. However, we are yet to receive any news that the expedite request is approved or rejected. An expedite request takes weeks to process, what an oxymoron! It’s good that I have plenty of things to keep me occupied while this waiting game is going on, or else can die with all this slow response and keep in suspend not knowing what kind of outcome we will receive.

I have finally received more pictures of the inside of our new home on top of the 1001 picture showing outside of the house! :-)

It’s a big old house in the downtown area, we will be living on the second floor.

We use the side entrance and stairs leading up to the second floor.

The balcony and the view of the family room from the outside.

The dining area. I like the fact that it has plenty of natural light from the windows.

The living room.

The bedrooms before moving in the furniture.

I like what I see so far. The big boy knows I would fall for the wooden door and window frames, built in cabinet and those decorative panels that scatter around the house. :-)The rich brown colour and its beautiful grain has character, don’t you think? Though some people say they make the place look a little darker !

The big boy has already moved in some of the furniture and lived at this place. But he hasn’t unpacked most of stuffs, they are still in the moving boxes. He would have to change the mailing address and get more kitchen appliances too.

Hey, the house is ready, why am I still here? Unfortunately, it’s going to take much longer before we can be united. Uncle Sam hasn’t started to look at the papers. It was like throwing a rock into the ocean, we have not heard anything back. I bet the papers are collecting dusts somewhere at a storage or warehouse. We sent in an expedite request last week, hopefully we would hear some good news next two weeks !

There are a few people I would like to ask this question last week, but I didn’t ! Incidentally, they all work for the bank! Which make me wonder what kind people they hired to work in the bank nowadays?

The first incident, I walked into the bank, requested a “reduce of mortgage interest rate”, two customer officers told me there is no such thing. When I insisted there is, they asked me to write a letter.(And you thought that’s a special talent of government bureaucrats to stop people from bothering them!) I live 45 minutes away from the bank, I was not going to drive home, type out a letter and drive back there, so I requested a piece of paper and drafted a letter on the spot and asked them to fax the request to the HQ. I got a call from the HQ the next day, offered me a 2% reduction in interest rate!!

The second incident is an old issue that had not been solved for four years. I have a margin trading account with this bank and have an online account for stocks trading. Four years ago, I forgot the username and password, my account was suspended after three unsuccessful attempts. I was told to go to the branch to restore the account and the fellow at the branch asked me to call the customer careline. The customer careline people asked me to see the fellow at the branch to get the access code, after being kicked around like a ball for a few times, I just gave up. Recently, as I am trying to take care of the banking and financial matters before leaving for IL, and I wanted to sell the remaining stocks, I went back to the branch to enquire about how to restore the password (Amazingly, the same guy I talked to four years ago still works there and deals with this kind of problem) But, looks like he has not been equipped with the right product knowledge in this four years! Guy A at the branch asked me to call the customer careline, guy B at the customer caerline asked me to see A, so I told A and B, why don’t you figure out what to do and call me! That was a week ago, I am still waiting for their calls!

The third incident happened at the same bank of the first incident, I handed in a few security documents for verification and certification to a woman officer, was told it would take 2 weeks to get back to me. As I didn’t want to go down again to pick up the documents, I requested for the documents to courier to me. After two weeks, no news, but I was too busy accompanying my mom on a hospital tour and didn’t drop or call to check on the status of the documents. Four weeks later, I called the branch and enquired about the status of the documents, the woman who picked up the phone told me she couldn’t tell me anything wouldn’t check anything for me on the phone, I have to go to the branch personally. I got really annoyed with her, I asked for her name but she refused to give me. I then called the customer careline, made a complaint about it and asked to trace the whereabouts of the documents. The man on the customer careline was helpful, he was surprised that I was even told it would take two weeks to verify the documents, he said the branch could usually do the verification on the spot! Anyway, he verified with his superior, called the branch and managed to get them to trace the documents. He then called me back a few hours later, told me I could go to the branch to pick up the documents the next day, they would be verified. I was not free the next day, so I went in the following business day. Guess what ? I drove 45 minutes down there, was told they need to send the documents to HQ for verification and the woman who was in charged of this matter was on leave and I have to come back the next day. My face must have changed color, I tell you. I sat there, insisted that I would not leave without the documents. The woman who served me didn’t know what to do, she went inside and came back with another woman who looked like she is the supervisor or manager. (What’s wrong with this people who never identify themselves? Isn’t that a common courtesy to let your customers know who they are dealing with? ) She apologized for the “miscommunication” and offered to courier the documents to me the next day, so I don’t have to drive one and half hours to and fro just to pick up the documents.

The ridiculous thing is: after all the hassles and five weeks of waiting for the documents, was told they are no longer needed by another institution who required it, just because they never update their website!!!

Malaysia boleh!

My parents’ house is  an hour drive to downtown. We took an early lunch and left the house after lunch to go to this Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist. There was a long line and mom waited for two hours to see the “doctor”.

This Chinese herbalist doesn’t use the traditional herbs that need to cook for long hours, the doctor actually gave her some herbal medications in pill forms! He recommended her to see the acupuncturist at the same building to expedite the recovery.

Mom thinks the acupuncture helps and she feels less pain after the half an hour session. So, we are going back tomorrow for another session.

Mom’s leg pain hasn’t improved but worsen after the tour of hospital. At first she refused to go back to see the orthopedic. I have to bluff her that taking an X-ray wouldn’t cost much though she was going for MRI that cost 1k!

The MRI showed the disc between two of the bones on the spine (L5 and S1) has extruded and pressed against the nerves. The nerves happened to be the ones that control the leg movement. That’s why mom has been having leg pain. The extrusion is actually quite bad and the only way to repair such condition is going for a surgery according to the orthopedic.

The orthopedic said there is no medication to cure this kind of problem, he can only give pain killer for pain relief. Since mom is not keen to go for surgery and it may be a while for the pharmaceutical companies to come out with the right drugs for this kind of health problem, we will bring her to try some alternative medicine in the next few weeks i.e. acupuncture, Chinese herbals and chiropractic .

My niece and nephew are going to be here at my parents’ place starting next Tuesday after their trip to one of the hill resorts. Their mother was able to accumulate enough points with one of the credit cards with hotel rewards for a free one night stay at the hill resort. She is definitely one smart woman who constantly browse the credit articles for good bargains. :-)

The children are going to stay with us for 6 days. We are looking forward to see them and enjoy the time with them. They are good children, they can play together pretty well, of course the cat and dog fights are inevitable.

They are also very independent children, they do not need much attention from the adults. In fact, they can be little helpers around the house. Their mother has trained them to wash dishes, sweep the floor and pretty much can take care of themselves, we just have to feed them regularly. :-)

A few people asked where I am right now. Yes, I am still here, not yet move to Illinois. There are so many obstacles and delays. Seven weeks ago, it was the surgery to remove ovarian cysts, then spent 2-3 weeks going through all sort of tests due to the cancer scare and at the same time dealing with the pain after the surgery. Though doctor said it should be alright to travel after 4-6 weeks, still suffer from pain in the abdomen area. It takes much longer to recuperate than the doctor said it would!!

However, that also means I am not in a hurry to move and have all the time in the world to wait upon the big procrastinator to act. Can you imagine if air ticket has been purchased and he is taking his own sweet time to find a place for us to live? The delays actually save me from stress and put more lines that cannot be erased with the best wrinkle cream. It’s a blessing in disguise, indeed.

The big boy had delayed the plan to move out from his present place a couple of times. Since the landlord’s daughter is coming back, he has to move by the end of the May. After looking at more than a dozen places, he finally mailed me some pictures of places that he had looked at.

This is a house that he likes. At first glance it looks like it’s facing the T-junction (see the traffic lights), it’s the kind of bad Feng Shui that Chinese people don’t like, isn’t it? No picture of the inside, just a picture taken outside the house, does he expect me to decide to live here base on this picture?

I can’t live with that kind of un-assuring decision making process. So I looked up the street views on Google map, from the 360 degree view, can see the house is actually not directly facing the T-junction (though bad Feng Shui or not does not really matters very much to us as Christians). The traffic lights there are for the crossing. I was also able to cruise the neighborhood and check out the houses around the neighborhood on Google map. It looks like a nice neighborhood! As a visual person, no amount of descriptions on the phone can replace the thousands words that a picture speaks! When is he going to learn this?

He also mailed a picture of the garage. That’s the most important feature we look for in a house?! Who is going to live in the garage? Not me.

Will this end the house hunting? I don’t know, he hasn’t put down a deposit for this place. As usual, taking his sweet time to take photographs of the inside so he can show me, he says tomorrow. Tomorrow, if it ever comes…. :-)

It has been a crazy week, haven’t have much time in front of the computer. We have been visiting the doctors like they are our best friends since my mother complained about pain on her left leg two weeks ago.

She is her usual impatient patient who will not wait for the medications to work. Every time someone mentioned her sister’s husband’s mother’s sister ..you got the idea… was healed after seeing this and that doctor, she wants to go see the same doctor. The end results: she has seen 8 doctors, got back 8 packs of medications, and she is still in pain.

It took a while to persuade her to see our friend who is an orthopedic. He thinks she may have some problem with her spine or nerves, he gives a 10-day medication to relieve the symptoms and if the pain persists by the time we see him again on Friday 30th May, he recommends going for MRI (magnetic resonant imaging) to diagnose the problem.

One interesting observation, we all know the doctors are very busy people, but none of the doctors we have seen in the last few weeks own a PDA! Looks like no tech geek among doctors in this small town. I bet they probably have not heard of PDA loaded with medical software that allow them to have access to online medical reference and drug guide.

This kind of PDAs apaprently are very popular among healthcare professionals who are more tech savvy. One of the PDA software companies - Epocrates has sold over 500,000 copies of its medical reference software to healthcare professionals.

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

It’s SOLD.

After my sister in law helped me to forward the “Car for sale” ads to her colleagues, a few people rang and viewed the car. One of them took up the offer, I gladly got rid of it.

The buyer is an expatriate from India and he is not familiar with the name transfer procedures and how to deal with the car insurance. I called up the insurance agent to get a car insurance quote for him and accompanied him to the government departments to deal with it yesterday. The transaction completed in about one and half hours, faster than I expected, the wait for Puspakom checking was about 30 minutes and the name transfer was quick too. Maybe this government servants really bucked up a little bit after 8th March, eh?

Our National Carrier has been advertising about their discounted fares heavily on all kind of media. Today I checked the website for their KL-LA routes to see any chance of picking up a bargain. No luck.

One thing I really don’t understand. The airfare for flights originate from KL  are much more expensive than the ones originate from LA for the same route !

For example, to fly from KL to LA and return costs RM5566 (6 months ticket). At the prevailing exchange rate, it’s about USD1700+.

 Whereas to fly from LA to KL and return cost USD1186.20 or at RM3855.

The difference is about USD514 or RM1700!!

Why is our National carrier charging us more to fly out of KL ?

It’s a hard lesson learned: driving a car with the stick gear without power steering uses your abdominal muscles a lot. How do I know? I could feel the pull and the tension every time when force is exerted to change gears or turning the steering!

Could even feel it right there, the wounds are hurting. Not to mention the after effect - I have been suffering from pelvic pain and back ache ever since I drove around town to run errands the other day! Well, the wounds outside may seem to be completely healed, but the inside is still healing, any heroic acts can still cause pain that keeps me awake at night. My mother would say: “See, I told you so!”. :-)

If there is anything good can come out from the recent cancer scare, it scared the big boy into action! :-)

I have nagged and nagged about including me in his employer provided health care plan or get me  travel medical insurance before the health insurance kicks in. Since I am not there in IL yet and it never seems urgent, he just kept procrastinating it. Actually all he had to do just tell the human resource personnel about his intention and provide some basic data about his wife.

When the first pathologist’s report came back recommended further investigation of possibility of cancer, he sprang into action and got me on his health insurance plan within three days!

If we were gold coins collectors, we might be able to sell them to pay for the medical bills, but too bad we aren’t. Even a simple surgery and the subsequent diagnostic tests to identify malignancy has cost us more than 10k out of pocket. At least he knows cancer treatment without insurance coverage can wreck us financially and reason for many of the bankruptcy cases filed in America!!

Since I have taken every scopes and tests under the sun to identify malignancy and found none. Dr Eugene, the O & G suggested taking a second look at the pathologist’s report. He got me the slides and our oncologist friend wrote us a referral letter. The slides were sent to another pathologist at another hospital for second opinion.

The second pathologist’s report came back today, it didn’t mention anything worth further investigation! That means the first pathologist might have read too much and/or over analyzed the elements he saw on the slides!

Thank god it’s just a cancer scare!

It’s unlikely a common practice, but thank god for Dr Eugene who cares about the best interest of his patient, for voluntarily suggested getting me the slides to go get a second opinion. I believe it’s through divine intervention and the power of many prayers that changed and turned the outcome of this, thus keep me from going for another surgery to remove the left ovary as diagnostic and preventive measure, which is unnecessary in due of the second pathologist’s report.

I am very thankful that it’s not the real thing, just a scare that burnt a hole in my pocket and kept me busy running around for three weeks!

If you are a sporty fan, you will know watching the games in front of TV is different from watching it live, nothing beats the kick of watching the games live! But, it is not always easy to get tickets for sport events especially for popular sport events i.e. Miami Heat tickets are usually sell like hot cakes.

Are you frustrated because you cannot seem to get the hot tickets for your favorite NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL games or an amazing concert? Have you ever tried getting it online? With the Internet, it is possible to get your tickets without camping outside the ticket sale counter. :-)

My parents have lived in two different houses in their 40 years of marriage, they cannot imagine how on earth people like me moves around like a nomad. I just realized that this is the fifth time I am moving in the last ten years. That gives an average of one move every two years, it’s quite a nomadic lifestyle, isn’t it?

In fact, many of the boxes haven’t been unpacked since the last two moves. They are so many things we need to sort out or throw away, but we get so overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sheer thought of going through this junks, we just don’t do anything with them!

Many of the things are not useful nor valuable, but they hold certain sentimental values i.e the two boxes of cards and letters from a dear friend who was studying in a different university. It’s amazing that we were able to write to each other faithfully for 4-5 years, these letters are good chronicles of our student lives. Nevertheless, it’s time to throw away the bouquet of silk flowers and the small trinkets as they have accumulated to much dust. Time to give away all the soft toys and small little gifts from ex boy friends to niece and nephew and whoever wants them. :-)

Got up 6.30 a.m and start meddling on this computer, thought better get some work out of the way as this is going to be a busy morning running errands. I need to drop by the oncologist, Dr Nonis’s office to pick up the pathologist’s report. I am a bit nervous about the outcome.

Then, I am going to our house to sort and pack up some boxes that the part time cleaners already helped to move to one of the bedrooms that we are going to use to store our stuffs. We plan to rent out the house for as long as we are away in IL. May be we will return to live here one day when we are older, right now our plan is to keep the house and not selling it yet.

I am also going to help dad pick up his computer that sent for repair on the way home. His desktop was fried during a thunder storm, the mother board, sound card and video card have to be replaced. Good thing they are still under warranty! The last thing is to pick up my second sister who is at the car workshop. She is sending her car for painting work and leave it there until tomorrow.

With a few blogs running on several hosting plans, the cost of maintaining this blogs can add up to be quite a bit. However, it has not been costing me anything more than the domain registration in the last one year. I am able to host the blogs for free or almost free by taking advantage of the promotional offers of many of the hosting companies.

I just signed up for a first year free or almost free package. When the one year is up, I just move to another host. Since I have done the migrating a couple of times now, I have even learned to do it in a few simple steps, without involving the MySQL or any scripting whatsoever.

But, there are two lessons learned along the process. First, never take the “free” domain offered by this hosting companies if you plan to move out after a year. The “free” domain doesn’t register under your name and you need the permission of the hosting company that provides the “free” domain (the current registrar) to transfer the domain. Generally, they would lock the transfer of your domain one month before it expires and that would cause much delay when you try to transfer the domain and move your blog to another hosting company. It took seven days for me to be able to successfully transfer a “free” domain out.

The second lesson is: make sure the hosting company allows shell access. You cannot do a direct import of the posts, comments and categories from your old host if you do not have access to the root directory. This hosting company doesn’t allow access to their root directory for security reason. What lame excuse, don’t they heard of unix security software ? Luckily it is free for the first year, so I am still thinking should I get a new domain and start a new blog there, or just abandon it totally?