The Wisdom Of Children

The twins 'reading' together (in this photo: one of my Tintin comic books in French)

On The Brain

A few weeks ago, the twins picked out a book about the skeletal system from the National Library. I’ve read it to them a couple of times, simplifying the explanation as much as possible. At one time, I saw them poring over the book while having this discussion.

Twin2: Abang, yang ni skull. (Big brother, this is the skull.)

Twin1: A-ah. Dalam skull ada brain. (Yes. Inside the skull is the brain.)

Twin2: Kena careful kan? Nanti, kalau skull pecah, brain boleh terkeluar. (We must be careful, right? Because if the skull gets broken, the brain might get exposed.)

Twin1: A-ah. Nanti tak boleh fix. (Yes. And when that happens, it can’t be fixed anymore.)

Nasi lemak with ikan bilis

On The Origins Of Anchovies

We were having nasi lemak at home the other day. Nasi lemak is rice cooked with coconut milk and served with — at its most basic — hard-boiled eggs, ikan bilis (crispy fried anchovies), and sambal (chili). While munching on the ikan bilis, Twin2 suddenly turned to me with a thoughtful look on his face.

Twin2: Mama, ikan bilis is baby tadpoles (sic), right?

RoundBoy attempting the waterslide in 2007

On Fear

Yesterday, DH and I took the children to the swimming pool, where RoundBoy expressed regret over previously being afraid of the waterslide.

RoundBoy: Mama, when I was small, like when I was 6 or 7, I was scared of the water slide. But not anymore. I just realised how much fun I’ve been missing just because I was scared!

Great insight from an 8-year old, don’t you think?

I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Tags: anecdotes

When my former roommate from Ateneo came for a visit last month, she asked me about left luggage lockers at KL International Airport (KLIA). I was embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about it, other than the fact that I’ve seen it somewhere in KLIA. The most that I could do at that time was forward her the link to the information in KLIA’s website.

To redeem myself, the next time I went to KLIA, I made it a point to drop by the left luggage lockers at the Departure Hall (Level 5) and ask for some information.

The left luggage lockers are located behind check-in counter B. As you walk past the check-in counter, you should see a pharmacy on your left. Continue walking and you’ll see a coffee shop on your right. The left luggage lockers are right next to it, just before the surau (Muslim prayer rooms). You can’t miss the maroon-coloured lockers.

Left Luggage Lockers At KLIA

The staff who were on duty at that time were very friendly and helpful — they even showed me the different locker sizes that are available for rent.

This is the small locker that costs RM10 per day. It measures 40cm x 32cm x 75cm.

The brochure that you see at the bottom is about the width of a sheet of A4 size paper. I intentionally shot it together with the locker to you give you a sense of scale.

This is the medium locker at RM20 per day. It measures 55cm x 43cm x 75cm. Carry-on luggage can easily fit into them.

Those papers taped at the sides are A4 size, as well.

And this is the big locker at RM30 per day. It’s big enough to hold a golf bag and then some at 135cm x 32cm x 43cm.

In their brochure, they also have extra large lockers (up to 2 cubic meters) for RM40 per day but I didn’t get to see it that day.

You can rent a locker for as long as you want. And you can stuff as much luggage as you can into each locker. The management reserves the right, however, to check your luggage and/or x-ray them, if deemed necessary.

They’re currently having a promotion that entitles you to one day free if you rent the lockers for ten days or more.

There are also left luggage lockers at the Arrival Hall (Level 3). After exiting the baggage claim area, it’s located on the left-hand side, right after Burger King. I’ll check on it next time and post more photos. Both luggage storage facilities are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For more information, call +603-8787-4211 or +603-8776-5035. You can also email them at tdsb3@tm.net.my.

Tags: KLIA, luggage locker

After what seemed like eternity, I finally received an email from Twitter about my suspended account.

The email read:

“It looks like your account got caught in a spam cloud. You’re all clear, but this might be a good time to review http://twitter.com/rules anyhow. I’ve restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience.”

And so I’m back on Twitter, to my relief. (Just after I created a new Twitter account this morning. It figures!)

If you ever find your Twitter account suspended, don’t waste time in filing a Support Request (please click here). After you do that, you should receive an email from Twitter Support giving you the ticket number. Make sure you reply to this email because by doing so, the ticket will be reopened and your ticket will be placed in queue for support. If you do not reply, your case will be closed.

There are lots of horror stories on the internet about how long Twitter takes to get back to people contesting the suspension of their accounts. So I guess I should consider myself lucky for them to reply to me AND restore my account within 20 hours of my filing the support ticket.

Anyhow,  this suspension-of-account-business got me all stressed up so I’ll still be needing a massive dose of chocolate to purge all the stress out of my system. Looks like I’ll be making molten lava chocolate cakes tonight ;)

I had the shock of my life today when I logged into my Twitter account and got the notice “This account is currently suspended and is being investigated due to strange activity. If we have suspended your account mistakenly, please let us know. See Suspended Accounts for more information.”

With my last tweet being “Working on spreadsheets. Must stay away from Twitter until I’m done. MS Excel for Mac, don’t you dare do anything funny or heads will roll!”, my first reaction was: it must have been the anti-MS (Microsoft) sentiment that did it.

But after a bit of googling and less-hysterical more rational thought, I realised that my last tweet must have triggered some auto-response that classified it as a direct threat to someone. You see, one of Twitter’s rules specifically states: “Violence and Threats: You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.” Obviously, their system needs a bit of fine-tuning.

I’ve already filed a ticket to contest the suspension and am currently waiting for a reply from Twitter, all the while trying to fight off Twitter-withdrawal symptoms. It feels so debilitating not to be able to tweet a link to an interesting article I’ve come across; or upload a photo that might be of interest to my followers; or post an observation that does not require a full blog post.

It’s only been a few hours and I’m already feeling lost without the stream of news updates from Al-Jazeera (for international news), StarOnline (for Malaysian news), Time Magazine (for current events) and InquirerDotNet (for Philippine news).

I miss the stream of information from my favourite photographers, photography-related resources, other travelers, and travel-related services.

I miss getting direct feedback and comments from my favourite airlines (KLM, Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia) and from my home ISP (P1W1MAX).

I miss the trivial details of what’s going on in my friends’ lives — at least the portions that they choose to tweet about.

In the meantime, I’ll sit tight and hope that Twitter replies soon (blame it on the huge time difference between Malaysia and the US). Otherwise, I’ll just have to create a new account and start from scratch all over again… *sigh*

Tags: Twitter

…when the buns on the shelf of a convenience store feature flavours like these:-

Malaysian buns

From left to right (click on above photo to see a larger view):

• Kelapa – coconut
• Ikan bilis – anchovy in chili
• Kaya – coconut jam
• Kacang merah – red bean
• Spicy tuna

Retail price: only RM0.80 apiece (~USD0.23) as of this writing.