THE WEDDING / BRIDAL PHOTOSHOOT - WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

1. Negotiate everything before you sign any order forms. 

2. Ensure that whatever the salesperson promises you is written into the order form.

3. Keep a copy for yourself and do not lose that copy.

4. Refrain from adding things that cost money when things start rolling. 

~ Small things add up, things like lashes, clip-on nails, and new cosmetic powder foams, they will charge these things into your account if you ask for new ones. You can go with the dirtier used ones or buy new ones or... bring your own (yes, bring it on the day of your photoshoot), they will gladly use yours.

5. Take very good care of the wedding dress when you are in it. 

~ Once you cause a tear into the dress, you may have to pay for the full cost as they cannot use it for future shoots no more.

6. Insist on perfect make-up or dressing. 

~ If you don't like the make-up, ask for a do-over. For instance, if it is too much or too wild and you are the more demure and soft-spoken/elegant kind, inform the make-up artist. It would be great to decide from the start the theme you want to deliver in your album so that the artist can help make you up into the princess you want yourself to be in your album.

7. Have breakfast on the day of your photoshoot but not too much that you get a bulge on your tummy. 

~ The photoshoot will be amazingly long, with next to no time for food in between. You won't have any appetite to eat anyways - who wants to smudge their lipstick, right? - still, it's good to start up energetically in the morning.

8. Do not fight in the middle of the photoshoot. It will show up in the photos.

9. Be wary of things that might turn up in the photos. 

~ If you are not wearing shoes, ensure that they are covered or out of the camera's range; when you dress in a western setting like a conquistador wedding or a Japanese wedding, guys, take off your Casio watch, girls, no glasses etc

10. Have fun. Loads of it. 

~ It will be the last fun thing you will get to do with your spouse without worrying about any other thing in the world.

With love, Mama Sing

HOW TO GET THE RIGHT WEDDING / BRIDAL PHOTO PACKAGE

I'm just going to take a step back and write about one of the best, most fun thing I have ever had the privilege to do: take wedding photos. I have many friend and relatives who are now entering this phase, wondering how much they should spend and what they should get for every dollar spent. If you are also one of the few who wish to know what to look out for, here's several factors that can help you make your decision on which package to take.

Budget and fun

It is important to have a budget before you start picking out a wedding photo / bridal photo album package. Work your way around your budget, give or take a little bit but DO NOT go overboard with it. Much of the fun of making a wedding photo album is the photoshoot, something intimate that you share with your partner and your partner alone. Besides, at the end of it all, five years down the road, the wedding album will be shoved under the bed and so cherish the experience you gain from working together with your spouse... to have FUN at the photoshoot.

Do save up before deciding on the wedding budget because sometimes money can buy happiness. My wedding package was in the vicinity of RM5k and that was because I saved like crazy for it and I felt that it was the right way to pamper me, myself and I for a change, and until today I do not regret my decision.

Indoor or Outdoor or both?

In determining the fun factor, you have to decide if you want to have your wedding photos indoor or outdoor. 

The perks of having it indoor is: 

~no bugs, you can see your eyes on the photos (no need for squinting under the hot sun), the focus is on the both of you, you can have more fun with a wider variety of wedding dresses/gowns, it's easier to control the lighting making you the centre of attention, air conditioning(!) and minimal sweating. 

The perks of having it outdoors: 

~an amazing view, a freestyle feel to it, the chance to have a long-train wedding dress (utilizing the space), night sceneries, beautiful beaches, blue skies and grassy fields can make for breathtaking pictures.

The type of wedding or bridal gowns or dresses

The typical most affordable package will allow you to dress up in 1 wedding gown/dress, 1 evening gown, and 1 traditional or western costume. This can be easily available in the under RM2k category and is great for quickie weddings or just to get it out of your system *wink*. Every girl is entitled to be treated like a princess for a day, so why deny yourself that privilege? 

For my RM5k budget, I got 3 wedding gowns, 2 evening gowns, 2 traditional costumes + 1 wedding gown for my groom-brings-bride-home-ceremony, and 2 evening gowns for my wedding dinners (husband's and mine). That's a total of 9 gowns. You can tell I was a happy bride.

Bear in mind that usually you are only allowed to reuse the wedding gowns used for the photo album for the wedding dinner. Try to negotiate for at least an extra wedding gown (fresh pick) for each of your planned wedding dinner or reception. And do this BEFORE you sign the order form.

Knowing what you do and don't need

The thing with wedding / bridal photo album packages in Malaysia is they put in a lot of stuff that you don't really need, but first, let's talk about what you do need:

1. wedding photo + frame for your mom's house.

2. wedding photo + frame for your spouse's mom's house.

3. wedding photo + frame for your house. 

~This is usually huge, and hung over your bed. I have two which are still sitting in a closet because no one has gotten around to start nailing stuff onto our still newly painted walls.

4. a photo album, maximum TWO photo albums

~usually one large, and one small. Keep in mind to have a good-quality cover or an overall album, that is, ask for aluminium corner casings that will prevent the side of the album to curl up over time.

5. complimentary wedding photos. 

~These are sent with the invitation cards that go to your closest friends and relatives. It's a personal gift which limits it to around 30 copies. Some bridal shops give it to you for free but will charge you extra if you want extra copies after you have signed the package. Well, they need to make a living you know.

Now, to what you do NOT need:

1. Weird photo frames or designs that cost extra. 

~They end up being dust collectors at your home thereafter.

2. Adding extra poses AFTER you have decided on how many poses you are getting within your budget. 

~Many packages go overbudget after the initial price because you will see many beautiful pictures of yours that you want to put into the album, but lo and behold, you have exhausted your number of poses for your album. What are you going to do? Well, after going through a gruelling day (mine took 8 hours) to finish the photoshoot, of course you will buy the extra poses.... at an extra RM8 per pose. Yeah, you do the math. An extra 12 poses will definitely set you back RM100 easily but by then there is no turning back.

3. The flower settings they put on the front of the groom's car. 

~You can return them and do your own flower settings and get this, they charge you around RM120 for this service. You can ask friends who are good with flower arrangements to do it for under RM30 (for the materials, it's your business how much you angpow you want to give to your talented friend).

4. Large photo albums that are impossible to transport around. 

~Go for more manageable sizes. The length of my large photo album is twice the width of my small one (which is comfortably smaller than the regular primary school textbook).

Remember that you are the star of the day and therefore things should go your way without you feeling guilty about anything. Don't go overboard with the poses but don't be too clamped up about it too. Experiment with everything and anything. 

Love your wedding, Love the camera, Love yourself.

WORKING FROM HOME: A SERIOUS MATTER

It has always been a dream for me to be able to work from home, for a few reasons. 
A. I get to accompany my husband, who has been working from home for an employer who is in the United States. 
B. I get to spend more time with my daughter, and mould her into the minion that I want her to be (buahahahhaa)
C. I get to learn to become a better cook.
D. I don't have to waste my time, or waste away my health by dealing with the horrible process of commuting to work. and lastly...
E. No office politics (yay!)

However, little did I know that working from home would come with a full set of new problems that would make one want to throw in the towel within the first two weeks alone. Here's what happened:

I quit my previous job in late 2010 and found myself in a new home, in new surroundings and a ton of creases that needs stomping out. Basically, I got my own home already (hurray!) - which practically came without an internet connection or cable TV. We also had to start looking for new places to shop for raw materials, as well as new places to dine in, and let's not forget new recipes to apply to our daily makan routine.

Along the way, I was lucky to have been given several jobs by an ex-employer, on a freelance basis that pays alright for someone who doesn't have to step out of her house to get some dough. 

In the meantime, my daughter was trying to get used to having to face both her doting parents every single day, and by that I meant, she was trying to figure out what are the best ways to manipulate us into giving all that she wants. Oh.... I will count the ways. 

Needless to say, Havoc ruled the first three months I was here. 

But then... 

Things began to fall into place around chinese new year. 

For starters, my husband and I have established that we will share the household chores although he rules the kitchen more and I rule the washing machine more (no complaints there). We finally got our Unifi connection, 2Mbps (thank you)

As for being perfect parents, we are far from it, usually leaving Eva to the mercy of the idiot box (no complaints there either) until one night, she woke up at around 3.30am and asked (more like screamed) to watch Elmo. 

Her needy condition led to both her parents ending up in fights, arguments and tantrums (I don't wanna watch her, you watch her) and it had gotten so bad that one day I told my husband that I want to stop freelancing and just watch Eva, due to Fact 1: he is the breadwinner of the family and Fact 2: since I am without a stable income, whenever he is busy I HAVE to drop EVERYTHING to watch Eva... might as well make it permanent. 

That's when he came up with the idea of having the SCHEDULE.

The schedule

Eva sleeps at around 11pm at night (that's early for her) and will wake up between 10 am and 11.30 am. So my schedule turns out to be from 12pm to 6pm, after which her dad will take over from 6am until she goes to sleep. If you think that doesn't sound fair, Eva does take a two-hour nap at around 2pm to 4pm and while it is easier to let her nap, it is a whole other thing to get her to go to sleep at night. Initially, I was pleased with the arrangement, until I realised that by the time I am done looking after Eva at 6pm, it will be dinner time, and that coupled with a LONG day would make me too tired to do anything else. 

I struggled for about two weeks, before asking for a flip with my husband. Turns out the switch was useless since he takes some afternoons off to Skype with his employer in the U.S.

We reached a dead-end once again. So what happens next? My work got delayed pretty badly and it got me really worked up that I can't deliver as punctual as I used to no more. So what they hey, I'm already screwed, why not take this time to just hang out with my kid? And hung out I did, and I discovered something extraordinary.

They just want you to listen.

Maybe it's just Eva (who's barely 2), but I hope it's the same with all kids, but kids like her, all they really want is for you to just listen. Once they pass the 18-month mark, they undergo a sort of transformation that allows them to be self-conscious. They understand what they want and will demand for it and even though they can't talk, they will find other means to let you know they want that banana or more milk, or just an empty bowl to bang around for fun. And the magic happens when you stop and just listen to them. 

For example, I once asked Eva when she was around 19-mth old if she would want milk. She would stare at me like I'm a statue and then she would look to the side for something else to stare at, then look back at me and then nod. Eventually that nod evolved into repeating the word I use for milk "neh-neh" repeatly until I get it and start making her a bottle of milk. Later on, our conversation would become something like "Do you want milk/neh-neh?" Eva: "Neh-neh? Yao (I want)". Up until now she would say this, as if to confirm if I am offering her neh-neh (as opposed to biscuits or fruit or yogurt etc), and then saying "yao" I want or "bu yao: I don't want. 

Until early February, I've never realised what a connection Eva and I have established until her father got some time off to actually watch over her while I catch up with my work. He was having a rough time for a bit and had resorted to using the back of his hand to deliver messages to her daughter, like "time to take a bath", "do you want milk or not?", and "stop wriggling around and put your pajamas on" whereas when I take over from him I got her to do those things with less of a hassle on my part, and less of pain on her buttocks on her part. I told Eva's dad repeatedly to be gentle with her and to listen to her but I guess by that time Eva had decided that she could only trust one person, and I had the luck to be the one she chose to trust. 

Eva took full advantage of being the mama's girl, demanding things by doing what I ask her to do, up to a point where she is starting to show the effects of being over-pampered. When her grandfather came over to stay around two weeks ago, he confirmed this state of affairs by saying that she is a spoilt brat. So again we went all flexible with this parenting gig and started changing our modus operandi again. 
I introduce the clothes hanger.

To be continued...

TOO LATE FOR TOO LONG

It's well into the first month of the first year and close to two months since my last blog post. There is nothing to apologize for (which many bloggers tend to do and which I think is a bit sad) but there are plenty to be blurgh in here. 

Currently I'm writing from the state of Sabah which has earned the label of being the second poorest state in Malaysia in 2010 (or perhaps longer, nobody cares enough to keep count). Sabah is part of the island of Borneo which it shares with Sarawak, a fellow Malaysian state; Brunei, a country on its own; and Kalimantan, part of Indonesia. See the illustration below.

Bor-nee-oh

Sabah has lots of land. Acres and acres and ACRES of it. Those lands have trees, which contain wood, which translates to timber/lumber/sources for moo-lah. Did you know that Sabah also has oil off its coasts -  funny how our history books never mentioned it much though. All in all, there are few reasons why Sabah has to be in the poor category. 

A penny for your thoughts
A friend from the US visited us recently and he remarked that when he visited Kota Kinabalu 8 years ago during his first trip to Malaysia, he was surprised that KK was more developed than he had expected. 

I had just been to KK last October (of 2010) and even though it looks like a nice place to visit, the place still reeks of slow development. In KL, overhead bridges, new roads, flyovers and 18-storey condos are built in the span of 3 months to 3 years. You can't find anything in Sabah that you can boast about in the same capacity. 

With the head screwed on backwards
What you can find in Sabah, or at least in Tawau is idiocy on the roads and I do not mean the regular culprits (being the drivers).

Who freaking builds two traffic lights that are in a length of 5 cars apart? 

Who makes you drive on the wrong side of the road in one freakin' street in town, in an effort to reduce traffic jams? Note: Critics dubbed this the American road. It has since reverted to the colonised nation way again.

Who turns two healthy, beautiful, perfect two-way roads into two one-way roads that lead to a traffic light crossroads?

Who digs up the roads to fix a pipe underneath then leaves the road unfixed after?

Who stops and summons a van driving on the right lane because there's a sign saying Ikut kiri jika tidak memotong (Keep left if you are not overtaking)?


>>>> Dare I say it? Idiots bah.

DON'T MAKE ME...

My love for writing fiction has died. Or at least, I have let my technical side take over the creative side. I'm second-guessing myself every time I write a sentence. At least now it isn't so bad but that was only because I wasn't attempting to try to write anything.

Hence, a note to writers out there who aspire to be fiction writers, do not indulge yourself into other forms of writing work, don't work for publishers who have a specific agenda that is not fiction-related. It will kill your creativity, and if your supervisor is bad enough, it will kill your love for writing.

NEW SCHEDULE

Took about a week plus to readjust from time-chimed working life to no-time-limit whatsoever life. I won't say it was all hunky-dory but hey... just needs some getting used to. Mornings have disappeared from my life because I now sleep at 2 am (on a good night) and usually it is after other people have started snoring. What do I do with the time? Nothing useful, you can bet that. 

But I what wanted to write about was the new phenomena (at least to me) of going from a 9-to-5-I-don't-have-time-for-anything mode to a I-can-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want mode. The latter is scary, seriously. 

You don't keep track of your meals, when to get your morning coffee (usually it is already what, 1pm by the time I remember that I needed it), brushing your teeth is not the first thing you do in the morning, your daily objectives is to think of what meals to prepare for lunch and dinner (whenever that happens), bathing is an option (but still necessary if you want to go out and meet someone and keep that person alive at the end of the meeting), you hog the TV because now you need not schedule TV into your.. er.. schedule, you can actually go to a sale anytime you want (which makes it no fun or half as alluring no more) etc.

I seriously had a hard time adjusting to all that. It might all sound peachy but to go from "there is a time for every thing" during school, university and work to "there's time for anything and everything"... well, if you don't have goals, you will go nuts.

That's what happened to me. I felt blurry in the first week. I don't know what day it is, what time it is when I wake up (but the sun was shining down on me with vengeance), I don't care about the news no more unless it is funny or it has to do with me forking out more money, speaking of which, yes I am still doing freelance work stuff for peanuts but hey, I'm having fun spoiling my kid.. speaking of which, is a real pain-in-the-ass while she tries to recuperate from her soggy mood from being sick for more than a week now (checks her watch) eh yup, it's been 8 days now but she is doing better thanks to the antibiotics the doc gave her. I really need to put in more effort to raise her immune system up to standard. This cannot go on! 

That's it! That's my new goal! woo hoo... now to actually organise it into something that is workable. I feel so productive suddenly. Yeah, maybe that's what I was craving for, to feel productive. Sigh... Is it too early to go back to work?