Inconditus-me@hotmail.com

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Rough Day

Ms J at 7:33 AM

8Readers Had Their Say...

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Networking

When i was back in Kuala Lumpur, I was busy not only meeting up with my family and good friends but was also squeezing in time for some networking - folks i used to work with and work for back in the hey days of independant income, from 3 different companies.

This obviously took a chunk off my already packed 3 week schedule in KL but i needed to keep 'me' in the picture with the folks in suits, and not be one of those exstaff who upped and leave and disappear.

Why?

Because you never know what the future hold - i may be back in Malaysia with 2 kids in tow, looking for a roof above my head and having to find income of my own. Or I may be happily married with 2 kids in school and bored out of my wits wanting to get back into the job market and looknig for someone to write a good testimonial for me. Or we may move to Houston and an opportunity arise for me to start work with my ex-client. Who knows.

So in a span of 3 weeks, i met up with my exbosses, ex client bosses, my ex-olleagues who are also my friends, and the kids i had once recruited and are now going places, moving on and living it up in the greasy 9-5 ladder.

Some meet ups are wonderfully poignant - people i have not met for over 10 years and can connect like it was only yesterday. With them, there's a lot of 'bringing up to speed' to do - as the last time i quit my job at PWC was to leave for the UK and marry a man 18 years my age. Since then, i told them, i had remarried, divorced and remarried again..and yes, lets hope this one's for the homerun.

Onother meetup was tinged with sadness. An ex boss i love dearly is very ill but true to her nature, is a real fighter and keeping a brave front . I was working for her during my 2nd breakup - that horrible period of jealousy, accusations, fights and visits to the phony 'ustaz' who is more a charlatan than a religious cleric (oh, i must write about that!). She was supportive and understanding of my frequent need to take phonecalls from the soon-to-be ex, she was covering for me to the client when i needed to rush home for a good cry, she understood when i spent a long time in the washroom bawling my eyes out. And so when she told me of her health situation, i felt sad and angry that even the kindest of us are not spared life's brutalities.

There was also the meet up with my most recent client bosses who gave me a mixed emotions of relief (that i no longer work for them and so the days of massaging egos are truly over) and yearning for a past lifestyle (all those talks of business trips to Europe!). They were sweet, telling me WHEN (not IF) i return to Kuala Lumpur for good there will always be a seat for me at the office (and lest we get too excited, we all know words mean nothing without a firm contractual offer) but its nice to know the professional worth put on your name. At the same time, one of them, in the midst of conversation about office politics and who's moved where, put her hands on my lap, looked me in the eye and asked outright 'How many times a day does your husband pray'. Which of course left me speechless and scrambling for a polite, non-of your-business-lets have more prawn-petai gravy in this dish response. So, without really telling her to eff off (dont burn bridges, boys and girls!) , i gave a non-comittal reply .. 'oh.. well, yer know, working on it'.

Then there's the meet up with some younger colleagues i helped recruited and mentored. Boy, am i proud of them - all travelling places, doing so well, buying houses, owning better cars and having more senior posts than the entry-level postiions they once held. You would have thought i have been away for 10 years instead of my 2 - that's how far they have come!

And so there i was with my watermelon-sized pregnant belly and a toddler in tow, networking with people who may one day bail me out of a difficult situation, or may help open doors for me for a better financial future. Often at every meetup, i am left with that grass is greener feeling -
and i wondered if they feel the same. I wondered if they see me as the end-game, where they would like to be and i am quick to remind them that far from the 'tai-tai lady of leisure', i do work my ass off, only without the annual bonus, promotion and 401K (EPF equivalent) but like any working person, i get appraised all the time, even when you are least prepared - by other moms, by your inlaws, the little lady at the grocer's checkout, even your hubby! And despite all your 24/7 on-call work, your calling card merely states your name and that few letters - Mrs. M.O.M.

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Thank you all for your comments in my recent posting below. I am honored that some of you came out of your hiding to write a few words of support. In no way was i attempting to polarize opinions on the subjectmatter or villainise the commenter who instigated the post, but I needed to express the unwritten rule of blog ettiquette that we can all differ in our views but we must all agree to be polite at all times.

I appreciate each and every comment and shared story below.
My next few blog postings will be my long-promised Decade of the 90s and my folly with a phoney uztaz.

Ms J at 6:17 AM

2Readers Had Their Say...

Saturday, June 28, 2008

My poor angry little blog reader

Having an open, brutally honest blog is akin to having an open house - all are invited to come in, get to know the host, feast, enjoy some laughter, conversation and experiences. No special pass or in this case, password, necessary. If you dont like the food and what's on offer, you are welcome to leave and never come back.

My blog readers, for the most part, are shy folks. They visit, some stay, some quietly close the door behind them and walked out, vowing never to come again, other come bearing gifts of friendship and stories of their own. Some get acquinted with the host and share personal stories, a few disagree with how i 'set up home' and give an alternative, sometimes eye-opening view point, but hardly any ever come into my 'house' and spit.

That is, until my recent blog posting about the contents of my will - Lord of The Rings (and other blings).

Now, its an unwritten rule in blogistan that when you lay out your life so publicly, you open yourself up to not only kind words but also criticisms. That i know only too well from my April 2005 posting - Pee On A Stick - about my unplanned pregnancy. But for some reason, in this recent posting, this anonymous reader sounded so angry, going straight for the jugular, making incorrect assumptions (that my will is everything to do with MONEY) that i feel the need to set the record straight.

The reader wrote:
"What an insult you have caused to Malaysian woman. Who would think of having a hand me down wedding ring from a man. I am sure your son's woman would prefer a new ring from your son on her finger. Why would you even consider to write in the will what happen to the money if you re-marry. It doesn't make sense. Are you out of your mind? You are the laughing stock to the lawyer and to all cyber readers. Don't you know the total cost of burying a dead person in this country? The worst part is, if your spouse has debt and he died, you will inherit the debt as well. Don't start me on your prenuptial ridicule, if your son is nobody,with no title, no million dollars to his name, prenuptial is just going to make him look like a joke. Ethan Allen furniture as family heirloom? Imagine how the furniture will look like after 10 years. Anyway, it has been fun reading your fantasy in your blog. I am sure your lawyer was just happy to entertain your stupidity if he charge you by hour"

So here's my 2cents':

I certainly hope my son(s) have the honor and dignity to buy their spouses engagement rings and wedding bands with thier own funds. If they dont, the women should not be marrying them. But that's not to say they wont be gifting items they cant wear, to their spouses. My mother's jewelleries have been distributed evenly among all us siblings, including my bother. His wife now wears my mother's rings and necklaces. Now my wedding band and engagement ring holds significant sentimental value (we dont talk dollars and cents here) to me and MrJ. We have no fancy wedding pictures or even wedding gowns/hantaran/dowry to show and so the wedding band/ring are representative of our joint hopes and start of a new life. I am happy for my son's wife to wear them of course but as i said in the post, in the event of a divorce, it would be a tragedy to see my precious (again, i am talknig about the emotional value not dollors and cents) items end up with someone who will not appreciate the significance of the rings as much as my flesh and blood would.

The cost of burying a dead person in the US..or even Malaysia (refer my earlier May 08 posting about the state of my mother's grave) is high and i am very aware of that. Now why would my little angry reader assume that aspect has not been attended to in the will and funds accounted for? The same goes for debts of course. I can go into detailed financial mumbo jumbo but its not necessary to flash out our financial health in here, suffice to say when you start thinking of a will, you would have naturally accounted for things such as funeral costs and debt repayments (if any).

Now on to my Ethan Allen furniture. I didnt think how i handle my pieces of wood can upset a stranger so much but here's what i have to say...a 'family heirloom' does not have to be big-ticket items. they dont have to be sotheby's quality nor do they have to be worth much. We have homemade handmade great granma guilts, and little rusty old danish teapots as our family heairlooms. My grandmother gave me a piece of land which i foolishly sold to co-finance my studies in the UK, and how i wished i had not. If she had left me a little 'tikar mengkuang', it would have meant so much and i would still be the proud owner of something she once owned, loved and used.

The furniture, like the rings, hold sentimental value to us - signifying the start of a new life. Over time, my furniture will more likely than not, have crayon and scratch marks from my off springs - things that they can look back years from now with memories...the chaise they jumped on, the dining table they ate on, the bookcase they climbed on.

If we die early, I would not like their guardian to rush and sell everything in our house - leaving my children with sufficient funds but no tangible items to carry with them into the future, for the memories and familiarity of home. It has nothing to do with how the furniture look like in 10 years time..in fact, the more 'vintage' the better! it has character and every scratch and skid on the wood tells a story . That is my primary thinknig behind the Ethan Allen 'family heirloom'.
Now they can keen the furniture in their respective basements for all they like but again, to see it go due to a marital breakup will be sad for me and for them too.

now this one takes the cake ....'Don't start me on your prenuptial ridicule, if your son is nobody,with no title, no million dollars to his name, prenuptial is just going to make him look like a joke'.
Surely someone's been reading too much tabloids. You are only a joke if you lose all your pre-marital assets from a divorce because you think a will or a prenuo is only for the millionaires of the world. And you should always tell your children that having no millions and no title does NOT make him a nobody. We are all a 'somebody' for the mark we leave behind in this world, not for the millions and the tittles we carry to our names.
My 1st ex husband, upon divorcing his 1st wife, made a claim on all her inheritance - including all her family heirlooms, right down to her mother's china dining set and her properties in Greece. I was shocked and along with a mutual friend, talked him out of it before it went to the courts.

That was a lesson that lasted in my mind ....that when passing down something to your children, protect them along the way because you never know what a hostile divorce can do to a person. They say love is blind, and divorce carries a venom.

For the record (as i think this angry little reader seem to have, fixed in her mind that i am this horrid person 'living in pretence, fantasyland , above her station' ), i made no claims on both my past marriages because i did not think i have a right, morally, to assets they built up before our union(s). But how many women are like me?

And the lawyers? For the period that we pay them, they write and document our needs and desires into legally binding terms - does it really matter what the lawyers think? If they laugh and snigger at me for my idiosyncracy, so be it - when i hit 6 foot under, i want to know i have done everything within my power to protect my family - i will be the one laughing all the way to the grave.

So there you go. I've said my peace and i hope it lays to rest once and for all (but who knows,ey).
If you live anywhere near where i am, I would love to do coffee with you and undersntad why you are so angry - perhaps something touched a raw nerve with you, something personal that has nothing to do with what i write.

Anyways, my 'house' is still open to all, but if you dont like the feast on offer, leave politely and please, no spitting.

Ms J at 12:31 AM

27Readers Had Their Say...

Friday, June 27, 2008

Hear Me Sing The Blues

So its been 10days since i got back and 2 days since we got back to US time. BabyJ's jetlag takes 10 to 14 days to get back to normal and resynchronise to Mountain Time - that's 1 hour per day for our 14 hour time difference with Kuala Lumpur.

I am finally seeing the sun and awake when the rest of world here is too...but alas, my heart is not full of sunshine and singing the songs of summer. I'm suffering post-KL blues - a strange new phenomena i did not get from my trip back to motherland last year.

I guess last year, with my whirlwind 7 day trip to Malaysia and squeezing in breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoontea, predinner drinks, dinner, and supper all in one day for 7 days took its toll on me and i was just glad to be back in the quiet suburban life here. This year with 3 weeks of KL, relaxin', chillin' and takin' it easy on all front..i get to enjoy the trip more which means the trip back is that bit harder.

I have lost my appetite to eat - no food taste good, i crave for my nasi kerabu, satay, ikan bakar..all the simple dishes of homeland. Almost every american idiosyncracy annoy me - the excessive prozac-induced positivity, the high pitch shrills of ''hey how are ya'', the over analytical DrPhil and Oprah types, the organic-nazi soccermoms....apart from my enjoyable Sex And The City moms' night out, i have been staying away from the moms, the playgrounds and socialising where i can (we go to the park at 630am instead when all you meet are the commuters rushing to work and the dog walkers)

I think about the mess back in Malaysia - my sisters need me much, the aftermath of my mother's demise is still lurking its ugly head on my teenage sister - lost, scared, feeling alone. Just the little things a mother can help feel better with words of encouragement, a hug, a kiss. how sad to see her a victim of circumstances.

But this cannot continue indefinitely.

I made my bed so i must lay in it.

To get out of my funk, i took BabyJ to his first music class, then to storytime at the library. He had such a great time, smiling, runnning, shouting, jumping and it makes me feel sad that the place that makes my son happy and the place i am truly happy is not the same place.

I asked MrJ one evening recently, if , 2 years ago when i told him i was pregnant, and told him i dont want to leave Malaysia..what would he have done. Would he have left me to tend to the unwed pregnancy? Would he have stayed on in Malaysia and continue with the company despite the good job offer in the US? He said , in a heartbeat, he would have stayed on with me and the baby - wherever i wanted to be. He would never have left Malaysia and a pregnant girlfriend.

But 2 years ago, i never asked him that question.

And so i find myself here with a husband and a child so happy to be here, and me with a question mark in my head. There are things about KL that are not so great but they all relate to how we want to raise BabyJ. The simple thnigs we take for granted here (the clubhouse, the community centre, the good eduation system, the free classes) are, in KL, 'for the privileged' only, for the moneyed and the superclass...and like i said before, its important that BabyJ is raised 'normal' - mixing with people from all background, even if his parents can afford better things (good education should be a right, not a privilege)

Anyways, i think this is a classic case of the 'perantau dilemma'...you float between two worlds, the world you are in and the one you left behind.

Next weekend we are off to Canada to see Granma and FarFar a.k.a Sugarland. Lets hope i'll get busy pleasing the inlaws i wont have time to indulge in my What Ifs.

Ms J at 9:32 AM

5Readers Had Their Say...

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Lord of the Rings (and other blings)

...is this bum-in-the-air kid, BabyJ.

Today we had some lawyers come to the house to help us draft a will. Its something in our ToDo list which we have been procastinating for over a year, until our financial advisor dragged in and insisted on a lawyer to formulate and document our intentions.

It all started out pretty simple - everything will go to our children - BabyJ and sibling. That is, until we got to the finer details and i got my 'we're paying you lawyer's fees so let me make you work a little harder for oyur money' hat on.

And so we started putting conditions on the will:
On my part, my jewelleries (what little i have) should be split between the two children but in particular, my engagement ring and wedding band should go to BabyJ and be part of his pre-nup in the event that he marries. The thinking behind this is that no matte how much i hope and pray for a Happily Ever After scenario for my offsprings, the reality of life is not so rosy and i'd hate to see something of mine, with its associated sentimental value, end up with BabyJ's ex-wife.
This level of detail on a few little rings surprised our lawyer and MrJ embarrasedly commented that he's married to a woman who stays up in the night thinking about her grandchildren and daughterin law(s) when her child is not yet 2. ..to which the lawyer nodded understandingly and proceeded to pencil in my requirements.

On MrJ's part, he had asked that everything he owns go to me in the event of his death. Simole as that.
I had asked that he put in a condition that if i re-marry (who knows..i may be a 'marketable' widow?), the beneficiary entitlement automatically turns into a trustee position holding his assets for his children. Both lawyers jokingly asked if all women from Malaysia are like me..'giving away' inheritance money so selflessly.
MrJ insisted that no such condition is necessary as he will haunt me from the grave if I choose to honeymoon in Vegas with my new partner, from his hard-earned money.

The condition he had asked to be included in the will instead, is that the children be educated in North America...which is a fair enough request i think, though i am not sure if this is a very subtle way of ensuring his widow and children remain in the country and not scoot off back to Malaysia. (i stated to the lawyers that i have no intentions of getting an American citizenship even if this makes the execution of the will easier).

Next is the guardianship of the children if we both got hit by a truck and kick the bucket togehter.

We named the guardian, trustee and executor. I would like a small portion of the funds be cashed in annually to allow for my children to make their annual (where feasable) trips to their mother's homeland. It is a very important part of the will as far as i am concern as i dont want my children to regard Malaysia as that little country mommy goes to everyyear for her satay and fish head curry. It should be their 2nd home.

Next is what little i have in Malaysia - my tax-free savings account, my apartment, and my EPF. As i am a beneficiary of MrJ's pre-marriage assets, it is only natural to share mine with him but he had generously insisted that the EPF and ASB funds be given to one of my two younger sisters. It is a small amount (i am not rich) but it is a bog gesture on his part because he can easily insist that those funds be given to our offsprings as 'pocket money' when in the country. For that, i love this good man...and so should my family.

Then we get to the nitty gritty - jsut to make the lawyers work that little bit harder. MrJ's Rolex should go to BabyJ to be passed down to the eldest son who carries the surname. My Ethan Allen furniture, not of Sotheby's value but purchased with the intention of family heirloom handmedowns, should be evenly distributed between the 2 children and be part of their pre-nup.

And so you have it - the common theme in the will is the insistence on my part that the children have pre-nups. I have read and seen scenarios where an infatuated 20something young man give her fiancee a family heirloom, only to divorce the woman 2 years later..and though it's a tragedy to have loved and lost, i will minimise the financial pain of such folly where i can.

Now having a will carefully drafted out is not jsut for the Trumps of the world but also for the hoi palloi-s like us. Outwardly, its easy to sya a will is not eceesary as everything left behind will go to your offsprings but when you sit down to detail everythnig out, you will realise, like i did, that a lot of thinking, hopes and damage limitations come into play and so if you have 5,000 or 5million in your name, a will is an integral part of your responsibility - because when you die, you'd want your loved ones to fully , genuinely, whole-heartedly grief your demise, and not be making a bee-line to the lawyers to claim their share.

Go in style, leave a will.
A public service announcement from Inconditus.

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Ms J at 6:34 AM

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