I have been away because of LARSSON

I have been away from blogging mainly because I was hooked to Larsson's Trilogy:
The Girl with the Dragon Tatto
The Girl who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

They are simply excellent, addicting and refreshing. Every night after putting Aelig to bed, I chased the stories until mid night. I think I finished them within three weeks and now I have the feeling of emptiness, I hope there has a fourth book somewhere...

Mid Autumn festival & mooncakes

Mid Autumn festival is celebrated on the 15th day of August according to the Lunar calendar. During the evening family members among the Chinese community gather together to enjoy some mooncakes and appreciate the full shinning moon. This year it falls on 12 Sept.


While looking for mooncake photos I realized that the Chinese too have talents in baking. Mooncakes existed since 3000 years ago but sadly it still stays within the Asian community. We could easily find western pastries in Asian countries but not the other way round.


Some people tried to be creative so they invented black chocolate mooncakes. They are usually expensive, I have not tried them yet.


Even Haagen Dazs is selling mooncakes. I'm not sure I would consider it as mooncake as it only has the shape but not the taste. This chocolate ice cream mooncake doesn't have any traditional mooncake ingredients in it.


Durian mooncake is quite popular in South-East Asia, will try it one day if I have chance.


My favorite is still the double egg yolks mooncake. In my hometown there is a bakery who produces tons of mooncakes for export purposes. They usually start making them one month before the festival and we got to eat some from time to time. It sure brings back a lot of memory: the smell, the making process, the packaging...


Kids love Mid Autumn festival as they get to play with lanterns. Lanterns these days come in different shapes and colors, usually with famous cartoon characters. During my time, I would get a coconut shell, cut it into half and put a candle on it. We formed a group and have a parade in our neighborhood. We usually did it during the night and older kids would tell ghost stories to scare off the little ones...

Happy Mooncake festival to my beloved friends and family. I assure you that the moon in France is as round as the one you could see from Malaysia.

No pain, no gain

I could have witnessing these magnificent scenery and breathing the fresh air myself.
But I chickened out.
I really have no courage to carry 15kg on me, trekking for 7 days, sleeping on a tent without any sanitary facilities.
That's why, I could only see these from photos.
No pain, no gain. It is so true.

4 year old driving a car, for real?

A Chinese girl around 4 - 5 years old was driving on the road while her parents guiding her. While driving, she was singing, asking questions and at one point was even passing other cars. The video was uploaded online in many sites and created heated discussions especially among the Chinese community in the USA. French MSN news was reporting this too.

Here's what I saw in the video:
A girl was driving a car, judging from the voice, her mother sat on the front passenger seat and her father was sitting on the back passenger seat right behind her. She was singing and talking and looked at ease, she controlled well the car steering. The parents chatted with each other from time to time. She drove for around two minutes.

Conversations with her parents:
Girl singing or talking (I have problem understanding her): "la la la..."
Mother: "Drive your car nicely, Jia zheng".
Girl: "Have the flowers blossomed?"
Father: "Just drive your car". Realizing that she was passing cars, "Pay attention while passing cars".
At this time the car in front was turning left, the girl moved the car to the right land and continue driving.
After passing the traffic light, the father was persuading her to stop and let him drive: "Ok stop stop. Let daddy drive. Hurry, hurry, let daddy drive." Girl stopped the car on the road side and a man came out from the back passenger seat.
Girl: "What are you doing?"
Father: "Let daddy drive ok."
Girl moved over to the front passenger seat, onto her mother's knee.
Father bent down to collect two woods serving as extension to the brake and accelerator pedals and threw them on the floor of the front passenger seat.
Once the father settled down in the car the mother said "Let's go".

Now I wonder if this is for real. I googled in Chinese and many news on TV and newspapers were talking about it. Majority of readers condemned the parents as irresponsible and commented that the act had created danger to other road users. A police man regretfully said that there was nothing they could do as they could not punish drivers under 14 years old. They could only punish the parents if an accident happens.

It seems real. Judging from how at ease the little girl was, this should not be the first time she drove on the road. How scary!

Curry incident in Singapore

Recently there was a "Cook A Pot of Curry" movement on Facebook, urging Singaporean families to cook and share a pot of curry. This movement was in response to an incident happened 6 or 7 years ago, but some people managed brought it on again and it sparked to a hot debate online.

The curry incident happened between a new Chinese immigrant family and their Indian neighbor. Migrated from mainland China to Singapore, this family could not stand the curry smell coming from their Indian's neighbor's kitchen. They resorted to the Community Mediation Centre - an agency under the Ministry of Law, who recommended that the Indian family will only cook curry when their Chinese neighbor are not at home. You can read the fully story here.

Most Singaporeans do not agree on this recommendation. Curry dishes are national dishes in Singapore, as well as in Malaysia. The ethnic Chinese, Indian and Malay love them. I can't imagine someone telling me to only cook curry when they are not at home. Do I need to constantly peep on my neighbor to verify that they are not at home before I cook? This is just unthinkable. We used to go to an Indian restaurant when we were living in the US, it was buffet style and there were different type of curry dishes on the serving area. Asking Indian to not cook curry is like asking Chinese to not eat rice when their neighbor is around.

I wish my neighbor was Indian so that I can smell the curry everyday. On the other hand, I'm glad that no one ever came to my house telling me what I cook is too smelly. I can not imagine that one day the French meditation center would tell me that I can't eat durian in my own house because my neighbor can't stand it. I will most likely tell them to ban their cheeses first before banning my durian. lol

How to clean your toilet bowl for under 2 euros

The toilet bowl in our apartment has haunted me for a while. I didn't have problem maintaining a clean one in the past but this particular one has given me many headaches. It turned brown at the bottom part and no matter how hard I scrubbed, the stain won't go away. At one point I was convinced that I scrubbed it too much that the toilet brush hurt the porcelain and revealed the real color underneath.

So, guests have to use our gross toilet and I really have enough of it. I thought of changing one but before doing this, I checked online to see what I could do. And bingo, I found that some toilets have calcium deposits due to hard water and there are many ways to clean them. I especially like the methods from this website (in French). Here are the methods recommended:

1. White Vinegar (30 cents for 1L)
White vinegar is eco-friendly and is cheap. You can find it in grocery stores, displayed in the cooking oil and vinegar section.
To start the cleaning process, first use the toilet brush to push down the water level, then use a cup to drain out water from the toilet bowl. Use a sponge to absorb the remaining water.
Boil 1L white vinegar and pour it into the toilet bowl. Let it sit overnight.
The next morning, the calcium deposits were almost 60% gone!

2. Coca-Cola (1.34€ for 1.5L)
It is amazing what Coca-cola can do to toilet cleaning. The second night I drained out water and poured in 1L of Coca-cola and let it sit overnight. Ok, I was going to use the whole 1.5L but hubby wanted to drink some of it. The next morning, around 10% more gone. I'm not a big fan of Coca-cola and the fact that I'm using it to clean toilet, I think I won't touch it for a while.

3. Hydrochloric Acid
You can find this in Home Improvement stores like Leroy Merlin or Castorama. A lot of people recommended it because it takes less than 20 minutes to see the effect and apparently it cleans the dirtiest stains. However, it is dangerous to use as it creates toxic fumes so you will need to use a pair of rubber gloves and wear a mask. You will also need to open windows to let the air circulate. I hesitated for this method as it is not eco-friendly at all. In fact for those who has septic sewage system, this could kill the necessary bacterias. I will continue using white vinegar and use this as the last option.

4. Elbow grease (l'huile de coude)

Seriously, you can not blame me if I made a fool out of myself. I read this in French and I didn't know what was l'huile de coude. L'huile is oil in French so I went check online and I got photos of them in bottle and people asking question about where to buy it. I then asked hubby if we have this at home. He laughed at me so badly and he even told his coworkers and everyone had a good laugh.

So, what is l'huile de coude? Coude = elbow, in this case it means that I need to scrub scrub scrub with energy. And I did.

For my third attempt, I empty the toilet bowl and boiled another 1L of white vinegar. I let it sit for 10 minutes, then use a wooden spoon to scrub. It took some elbow grease but pieces of calcium took off and I felt that with the present of vinegar it was easier to scrub. Do not use metal spoon, I made a mistake by using one and it left a tiny scald there. Now the toilet is 98% clean, there remains some stains in the deeper area (non visible) but I think another round of white vinegar will do.

5. There are other tools that people recommended: pumice stone (I don't know where to find this in France), plumbers cloth or sand paper, screw driver (I'm not sure about this, it could hurt the porcelain).

Some people might think that this process of emptying the toilet bowl is gross. It was not for me as I think of this as a chemical operation. When calcium meets vinegar (acid), it soften and surrendered.



Voilà, here is how I use less than 2€ (1 bottle of Coca + 2 bottles of white vinegar) to clean the toilet bowl.

Aelig on vacation with grandparents

Aelig is on vacation with her grandparents. We received daily update from them. Here is what we got this morning, and grandma always put Aelig as the first person:

Good morning mom & dad,
I'm doing well.


Yesterday, I went to the beach: it was great, I like especially the waves, they made me fell down several times and one entirely covered my body. It was my baptism.

I ate very well: I love the grilled sardines and the potatoes with butter. I took a bottle of milk morning and evening, 230ml this morning.

Grandpa and grandma avoid saying mom & dad as I would quickly look around, but you guys were not there. Yesterday while doing grocery shopping with grandpa, I thought I saw dad and I called "papa" to a man with long hairs.

Big big kiss to both of you.

Aelig

Here another update from granddad:

Good evening,
After her walk with her grandma, she came helped me collect the apples fell on the floor. It was very convenient as she passed easily under the low branches and she understood immediately what she should do. At the end she wanted to pick an apple directly from the the tree but she looked at me and she realized that she was going to do a bad thing...
Later, she helped grandma watering the flowers, in fact she played with the garden hose.
She ate well and she asked to go to the bed at 9pm.
Tomorrow will be another day...

Big kisses to both of you, this time we are three with her, yes!.

Grandpa & grandma (tonight she said mamanpoutette to distinguish from papoutette)

Note: Grandpa & grandma would like Aelig to call them papounet & mamounette respectively but Aelig still couldn't quite get the pronunciation so she would call both poutette.

Grandpa & grandma's love to Aelig has always given me mixed feeling. I had never known my grandparents as they passed away before I was born. During my childhood I envied friends with grandparents: they got extra pocket money, candies, nice clothes, vacation...

I'm happy that Aelig could enjoy good times with her grandparents. Hubby was bitter that he was not the first one seeing her reaction in water. As for me, even though I miss her dearly, the most important thing is that she is joyful at every moment.

A song to Mamig for her 90th birthday

Recently we celebrated the 90th birthday of hubby's grandma. We call her Mamig. Most family members were there including her 15 great grand children.


A cousin was in charge to have all the great grand children to sing a song to Mamig. When she explained the song to Aelig, she didn't like the original idea.


A: This seems lame. We should do it differently so that Mamig would laugh while listening to us.
Cousin: What do you have in mind?


Aelig: Hey everyone, listen to me, there is a change in the plan, we would do it this way. Just follow me.
Everyone: Ok chef.


Aelig: You should hold the paper this way, and the lyric, I have corrected it...


Aelig: Do you all understand?
Everyone: Yes.
Aelig; Ok now let's start.
Everyone sings: "Mamig, you are ne ne never tired, we love you..."


Aelig: Mamig, did you enjoy our presentation?


Mamig: Yes, I love it very much, you all are very very sweet, now come give me a kiss.

Happy birthday Mamig!!!

Looking for fresh sweet corn in France

It all started with eggs.
We ordered eggs from the local farmer, we have to pick them up once a week.
Around a year later, we could get the hens.
Yes, we will eat the hens who give us eggs every week.
We got two this time and hubby cooked one with a French recipe (poule au pot). He didn't like it so I ate it all (I love everything with soup especially long simmer soup).
One more hen to go so I decided to cook it the Chinese way. Checked online on the recipe and found one that requires sweet corns and dried scallops. Looking at the recipe I was drooling, I so miss those chicken soup!

My mother sent me dried scallops so the only thing I needed was some sweet corns. I planned to order them online but couldn't find any in chronodrive. I had to make a stop to the grocery store just to find them in precooked form and they were wrapped in some liquids and displayed in the organic zone. I was skeptical but decided to give it a try. It turned out so delicious that even Aelig loved it (well hubby is someone who doesn't appreciate Chinese soup). Aelig ate a lot of dried scallops, it paid off to have mom sent them all the way from Malaysia.

So, what's going on that I can't find fresh sweet corns in France? I saw plenty of corn fields here. A friend told me that corns are food for animals. Some might get offended if you serve them corns. Here, they are usually sold in can (kernels). I have never seen people grilling corns here, most of the time I find them in salad.


I miss the time we could buy fresh corns on the road sides or from pasar malam (night market). My mother would boil them or steam them. Just need to remove the outer husks and the hairs before cooking them. The taste is scrumptious. How about grilling it with some butter? Simply heavenly. We usually leave the cob so that we could hold the cob while eating.

If I have a garden, I would plant some. Someone told me that since they are plenty of corn fields here, I could just go and "take" some. lol

About racial discrimination in France

Recently I read in a forum about how some people were being treated differently in France due to their skin color (mainly yellow). I just have to say that I'm blessed because I have never quite experienced racial discrimination here. Most of the situations I faced were rather due to poor customer service. Examples:

- A pharmacist was telling me that "vous m'avez dit n'importe quoi" (you told me non sense), I guess he didn't understand my French or asking a pharmacist to give me pill to delay my period due to wedding is a no no in France?
- A shopkeeper blocked my way to continue visiting the remaining of the shop. I can see in her face that she did it on purpose. I just passed cross her and bumped into her. She got what she asked for. She did that maybe I was wearing a pyjamas and someone wearing pyjamas is not welcome?
- I entered a boutique and the salegirl looked at me without saying anything. A second later a French woman entered and she put on smile and greeted with a big bonjour (hi). This could happen to anyone no?
- Being humiliated in SNCF, full story here.

Here are situations shared by forum members and they think these are real discrimination cases:
- being called chink or "bridé" which means "slit-eyes". Well I have never heard people calling me this. Forum members who had this were mostly lived in Paris or South of France
- being thrown firecracker which burnt the hair while being called chink by a bunch of North African kids. Oh no I can't imagine this! That girl was really unlucky but there is more chance to have these if you live in certain areas of Paris.
- was queuing to pay and at her turn, the cashier put on "closed" sign. Once she walked away, the cashier reopened the register and put on smile for the next white customer.
- being jumped queue. At the fifth time this happend to her, she asked herself if people chose her because she looked small and yellow and people have impression that Asian is easier to bully?
- went to an upscale butcher that are usually visited by white community. Once entered, the French white woman in front of her was looking at her from top to bottom. Same thing happened when another French woman entered the shop. She was starred at because she was yellow.
- ok this one is an experience from a good friend here. She said sometimes when she was with her French husband, some French women who was walking by would stop, look at her husband then at her, from top to bottom with an insulting look, as if how dare she dated a white man. Thank God this has never happened to me.
- She was sitting in front of a shop waiting for a friend. A boy around 5 years old came out from the shop with the parents. When he saw her, he kicked her. The parents just took him away without saying sorry. Well, kid sometimes behave inappropriately and this is up to the parents to educate them. I had met kid who told her friend while starring at me that "elle est moche" (she is ugly); on the other hand a kid was telling me that "tu es très belle" (you are beautiful). Once I was in a toilet and a kid yelled "Maman, une Japonaise!" (mum, a Japanese!) and I just smiled at her. At this point, I do not care how strangers think about me.

The main issue that most of us encountered is that how should we react when being treated unfairly. Most of us could converse in French but to quarrel and to curse in French, it is a whole different story. After being humiliated / confronted, most of us couldn't find the right words to express ourselves. Some choose to curse in their mother tongue, some just hold their tears and walk away. But, there are times we should not walk away. For example, if someone calls me bridé, I would just ignore it but if they try to bully Aelig, I would not rest the case. A useful phase I learnt to fight back is "mais ça va pas non!!!" (hey we are not good here), but what should I say next?

For the first time in my life, I reckon that it could be useful to learn some curse words.

19 months - blessed

We celebrated Aelig's 19th month with my in laws.

Aelig is blessed with grand-parents who love her dearly. Whenever they see her, their face shine up with smile.


When we are in my in-laws place, Aelig becomes their center of attention. When dining, she is placed between them, not us. We are allowed to sleep in as late as we want as in laws will pick her up at her first cry in the morning.


My father in law is someone who loves crafting. He made this for Aelig. Instead of toys from shops, I foresee Aelig to have special handmade toys throughout her children.

We are very blessed indeed.

Salary increment anyone?

One day, my boss invited me to his office. He said he was satisfied with my performance so he would like to offer me an increment. Later, I told hubby about this and he went:"You do not sound too excited about it?"

Yes, I'm not excited at all. You would not too if you see the comparison:

First job in Malaysia: 13% increment after 3 months probation
First job in France: 4% increment in total after close to 3 years

What about bonus? Before I left my company in Malaysia in 2000, they announced 2 months bonus for the employees. As for my current company, I have not heard of anything about bonuses.

Since it is quite a taboo to talk about salary, I do not know if the low increment rate applies to many people in general or it just happens in my company. My coworker said they used to get 10% increment in the 90s. Situations differ from industry to industry. As for the civil servant, their increment depends on their rank and academic credentials.

Anyway, my spirit was not as bad as several months ago when I realize that I would not get much increment. I was very discouraged, but by talking to people, I slowly overcame it and have since able to appreciate advantages to work in this company:

1. Good working environments
Being minority in the company, I do not feel being discriminated. In contrast, coworkers respect me, tolerate my French, sometimes show interest in my culture. Not once I was yelled at, being humiliated openly or pressed to a non-manageable situation. My friends in Malaysia told me that sometimes they cry in their companies due to difficult customers, high maintenance bosses or stressful assignments. I'm lucky to say that I have not experienced these in my working life. As with coworkers, they might keep their distance, but in general they are friendly. Mind you, they actually made effort to call me with my Chinese name with Malaysian pronunciation.

2. Family friendly
There is an implicit understanding that everyone lives a family life. I seldom work overtimes and in general people do not appreciate working late. Managers do not make a fuss if you need to stay home to take care of your sick child. During my pregnancy, my manager kept telling me that I should put my health / baby first, if there is any sign of discomfort I should not come to work or I should go home earlier. When my maternity leave ended, I asked to work several days a week in my town instead of driving 200km round trip everyday to R town, it was approved pretty quickly. Conclusion: it was my coworkers / friends / company environment that teaches me to put more priorities in my family. I don't think I could stand working until 10pm everyday or being sent outstations frequently like some friends do in Malaysia. Ops, did I mention the 7 weeks annual leaves?

3. Other benefits
- Private insurance and life insurance with good coverages
- Subsidized restaurant tickets make eating out more affordable
- CE (Committee Enterprise) who offers discounted tickets / rates to movies, activities, vacation rental, sports...

All these make me feel that, even though I might not been paid as much as I like, I'm well treated overall and have more time to spend with my family. This style suits me well. Of course, if you find a company / industry that pays well with big increment and bonuses + all the 3 non salary related points mentioned here, do let me know!

PS: Hubby said if you want increment in France (I think it applies to other countries too), you need to ask. The rule of thumb: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Sources to get Chinese children books from France

There are Chinese bookstores in Paris so I guess people living there should be able to get some children's books there. For people living outside of Paris and do not go there regularly, internet becomes handy in terms of buying / getting Chinese children's books from France.


See what I got? All these are FREE! Thanks to internet, I discovered and then joined a Taiwanese-French forum. Members here are mainly mixed couples who have experiences teaching Mandarin to their children in foreign countries. One member was giving away Mandarin children's books in Paris and through helps from various people, I managed to get some for Aelig.


These books were from Taiwan so there were printed in Traditional Chinese. Aelig is still young to have the level to read them but hopefully one day, she will fall in love with them.


Some of the books here are about animals so she was happy to find cats, mouse and ducks inside.


I also bought some books from Odonato Publishing in Malaysia. Thanks CL for recommending it.

Now I have plenty of books to show / read to Aelig. Hopefully she could appreciate them.

Saturday morning bread hunt 5

A: Ladies and gentlemen, it is Saturday bread hunt time again.


A: This time, I'm very unlucky, I fell down on the way and hurt half side of my face! :-( The good news is, the bakery has upgraded me to their VIP list, this is the second time I got a chouquette from them and NO, I will not share this with daddy!


Got home.
A: Let's check what is inside the bag. Oh, two pain au chocolat, nice!


A: Daddy, I'm home with your bread, I will charge your 10 kisses for this.


Daddy: Ok ok, now hand me the bread.
A: Can I use your computer?
Daddy: NO!


A: Ok I have my bread. Now let's runnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!
Daddy: No Aelig you are not allowed to touch my computer!!!!


A: The first one who sits on the chair in front of the computer will have the right to use the computer for the whole day.
Daddy: NOOOOO!!!


Daddy: Aelig, get away from my computer.
A: NOOOO!! Now play me my favorite Youtube videos.


A: hmmmm, eating pain au chocolat + watching videos + annoying daddy = life is good, une vie en rose.

Tricky prices

Summer sales has started earlier this year. I was going to check out good deals during lunch time but was too annoyed by the crowd. I quickly grabbed some groceries and discover this:


A bar of 100g soap is priced at 90 cent each or 9€ per kilo.


A package of 4x100g soap costs 2.65€ or 6.63 per kg, less expensive than buying one soap. It applies the rule of the more you buy, the less per unit you pay.


Now, a package of 6x100g soap is displayed at 5.49€ or 9.15 per kg. What the hell? Buying 6 bar of soaps is more expensive than buying one?

Yes, this is the trick uses in most of the grocery store. Whenever they package items together, we thought we will pay a cheaper price per unit but it is not always a the case. After being tricked for many times, now I slowly build the habit to compare prices when they come into different packaging. In this case of buying soap, it was the cheapest to buy 4 at one time (6.63 per kg) than to buy 6 (9.15 per kg). It was actually cheaper to buy one soap (9€ per kg) than buying 6.

Grocery stories nowadays are full of tricks...
And I wonder if the sales started earlier because some consumers have their half 13 months salary at the end of June?

18 months

I was too lazy to post when Aelig turned 17 months that's why I'm combining these two months developments / achievements.

According to our babysitter, 18th month is a milestone for kids, Aelig is now considered a little girl, she is no longer a baby.

Language development:

This is how she looks like when she says "NO"

She could now pronounce several words that are understandable:

In French: Chat (cat), kaka (poo poo), papa, maman, NON, doudou (toy), merci (thank you), la tête (head), main (hand), dodo (sleep), papounet (she pronounces papoutête)
In Mandarin: Mama, cat, dog, shoes, bao bao (hold), hot, thank you
In English: Bye bye, baby
In Malaysian Chinese baby language: nen nen (milk), mam mam (eat)

She is a chatty box but most of the time still converse in baby language. She would run towards me pointing at stuffs and babbling with an emergency tone. Sometimes it was because her milk leaked on the pillow, her toy was under the sofa, she wanted a cookie on the counter-top, she wanted to play with the computer...


Messing up with papa's computer. You go GIRL!

In terms of comprehension, she could understand some simple instructions:
Bring your shoes here
Put the dirty cloth in the laundry bin
Drink water
Give this to papa
Let's go to sleep
Let's go take a shower
Say bye bye


She loves looking at books and pointing at pictures. Since I have only one Mandarin book, I started to show her Mandarin nursery rhythms in Youtube. Hubby taught her to press the Space key to pause so sometimes she plays with it. Anyway, the first song she sang was in French, it hit me hard that her first mother tongue is going to be French instead of Mandarin as she spends more time with the babysitter and I'm the only one speaking Mandarin to her.

An animal lover

We brought her to the zoo and she showed interest in most of he animals. The sheep came towards her as she has a brochure on her hand.


Ended up she was being chased by a bunch of sheep who wanted to eat the brochure, she got so annoyed that she screamed and asked hubby for rescue.


The babysitter has a cat so she is familiar with cat. Whenever she sees one she would follow and try to touch it. She has no sense of danger so I have to always keep an eye on her.

Achievements:

Finally gained enough weight to have the car seat set facing the same direction as other adult passengers.


Manage to drink water from a glass (we still prefer her to drink from a plastic cup)


Know how to use her legs to move the little car


Blow her stuffy nose


First step towards becoming cordon bleu (world class chef)? I do not dream high, just hope she could be a little helper in the kitchen (instead of messing around).


Parenting milestones:
1. Sleeping pattern
I finally admitted that my method to put her to sleep was not working. I decided to outsource the task to hubby. He was firmed and after a week, her bad behavior was corrected. Sometimes I put her to bed and was amazed at how well she cooperates. She plays and talks to her toys then dozes off. Sometimes she cries and hubby goes to reassure her, sometimes we let her stay a bit longer with us, but we no longer take as much time as before. As for me, I'm no longer the mother who picks her up at her first cry.

2. Discipline
Hubby disciplines her most of the time, telling her to not drop food on the floor else she will have to stay in her room. His methods work fine, but I could not do it. No matter how annoying she is, I have hard time yelling or letting her cry.

A big thank you to hubby who manage to work things out when I'm vulnerable.

Laser refractive eye surgery: First appointment with Dr Jean-Max Mégroz

I have thought of doing the laser surgery since a while back. The idea was put on hold, mainly due to lack of courage. I have finally gotten the gut to take the first step. I asked around and people told me that La Clinique Sourdille in Nantes has good reputation in this field.

Someone recommended Dr Jean-Max Mégroz, a very experienced doctor in laser refractive eye surgery. I called for an appointment and it was scheduled for three months later.

Yesterday, I went for the first appointment. The main goal was to have an assessment to determine if I'm a suitable candidate for this surgery.

Dr Mégroz's clinic is well situated, right in front of the tramway stop Félix Faure. Once arrived, I was immediately called for several exams. Around 6 to 7 staffs were handling all the examinations with different kind of medical machines. The waiting room was full of patients (above 10 people at one time) from different age range, the staffs had good coordination between one exam to another and between one patient to another. They explained well the procedures and indicated clearly when I can wink my eyes (really appreciated this!). I had three exams before meeting Dr Mégroz.

He started with my name. He guessed I was not a Korean nor Thai, but he has no clue what nationality I could be. When the guessing game ended, he confirmed that I was his first Malaysian patient. He then read the exam results, checked my eyes, explained me the procedures, answered my questions, and I was sent to have an exam which is called "Topographie Cornéenne".

In the waiting room, one of his staffs came to give me eye drops, 3 times with 5 minutes interval. After a few minutes, my near-sighted vision changed, I couldn't even see what time it was on my cellphone. My vision came back to normal only in the evening. When all exams finally ended, it didn't take me long to see Dr Megroz again. He concluded that I could perform the laser surgery. The operation will be on a Thursday, it will last for 30 minutes for both eyes, I could go home in the afternoon accompanied, rest on Friday and weekend, good to go to work on Monday. The technology he uses is LASIK Femto Second.

The whole assessment took around 2 hours. It costed me 110€, 55€ not reimbursable by the national insurance but could be covered by my company insurance. He gave me a quotation for the surgery, 1300€ per eye. If everything goes well my insurance will cover part of it, and hubby already approved the expenses on the remaining cost.

Now, rest to decide GO or NO GO for this adventure. If you don't hear from me again about this topic in September, consider that I chicken out.

Miss Météo (Weather) at Canal +

The French TV channel Canal + has a program calls Le Grand Journal (The Big News) everyday from 7pm to 8.50pm. They have a Miss Météo, Charlotte Le Bon, who presents the weather forecast.


Every Friday, she arrives with Beehive hairstyle in the 1960s and the news is presented in black and white.


She has a very unique way to present the weather: She talks about anything but the weather. When she finishes, the TV shows a picture of the weather, in silent.


Yesterday she was talking about using a chain as a way of contraception.

I think that's a very unique and different way to present news and she is surely a charming lady. And she is only 25 years old!