Marsha Maung: Write. Cook. Read. Watch. Try. Innovate.

2014 sucked big time for Malaysians at large. Missing planes seems to be a recurring theme and I can tell you that Malaysia has never been on the news this much before. Malaysia was pretty much a what-country-is-that-and-is-it-Thailand kinda country. People didn't even know (probably) that we speak English or we have buildings or internet access here. Obscure and unknown. 2014 changed everything. People from everywhere else now know EXACTLY where Malaysia is and the country is NOT a city in Thailand or Singapore. LOL. Yes, I have been asked before. But that was before Google Maps and Earth was around. Malaysia is actually more like this... ...less like this... This is an Orang Asli village in some parts of Malaysia. They exist. Anyway, jokes aside, when I got a Whatsapp message on Sunday saying 'AirAsia missing'....my response was 'F-g kidding me!' Let's clarify one thing, though. Some people were adamant to separate AirAsia from AirAsia Indo...

I truly cannot believe this. Before I even got the chance to write about that 17 year old girl marrying that 15 year old boy, this article came out. I seriously cannot believe how much backward paddling we have been doing these days. So, I am going to just write a little about both. Men should be at work and women should focus on reproducing human beings ...here it is for you. Just OMG. You know.....Oh My God. Just to recap, the Women's Rights Movement began in 1848. 1848, ok? 1848. In case you don't have a calculator with you, that's 166 years ago. The first National (USA la, that is) Women's Rights Convention was held two years later which is 1850 in Massachusetts, 164 years ago. I don't even know where to begin. My brain is in a mess. LOL! The Declaration of Sentiments was signed in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 with the following statement:- ....the Sentiments demanded equality with men before the law, in education and employment. Here, too, was ...

You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year. - Henry Ford

Yeah, we all have fantastic ideas and ideals before we have kids or while expecting kids. We are not ever EVER EVER EVER going to repeat our parents' mistakes and we are absolutely, without a smidgen of doubt, BECOME our mothers oh no, we are not. We are going to be absolutely parent-astic. Our kids are not going to be some lousy foodie blogger or anything like that. They are going to be sur-effing-geons. But this is not how life is, you see, as this Stay at Home Dad discovered . Sometimes, we can only do our best not to F up, if I can honestly say it myself. Anyway, as part of my 'my kids are never going to eat fast food' pre-parent promise, I did up some home-made noodles. Yeah, so I nailed one-day-without-fast-food down. It's not really as hard as it should have been, really, because all there is to it is wheat flour, one egg, some water and some olive oil...and some more flour, flour, flour. One big mess but hey, one less meal of fast food, y'all. Th...

It's a bit of a bummer for us right now because Malaysia's kinda going through this Monsoon season which means nothing but rain, rain and rain. Yeah, we are a sunnier, more tropical version of London and Washington DC. It's a bummer because I love going for a short evening walk, before dinner, with the kids at the neighborhood park. Calming, relaxing and sort of a way to get away for a while, immersed with the people, the trees, occasional stray dogs here and there and also with my headphones and Spotify on, I am really in my own world. Just a couple of days ago, there was a short electrical blackout at the apartment and this was what we dredged out to play together. It was a simple board game that I used to play with the kids when they were younger and it is really kinda fun to play with them now simply because....they are quicker to derive at conclusions and better at the game of deduction? LOL So, it is no more 'Mommy wins all the time'. I was als...

This one's for you Paulyne. OK, the other day, I had to explain something about Malaysia to a Candian penpal of mine (Yes, penpal. We 'met' each other over pen and paper back in the days of postal services) on Twitter. The next thing I know, I found myself reading this article and I found myself literally laughing out loud. This might come as a shock to people from other countries but over here, we are so used to it, we laugh. Or turn a blind eye, deaf ear and plan to migrate to another country. ASAP. Just to take a page off of Wikipedia (I didn't say this. I only copied and pasted the following excerpt) Racism consists of both prejudice and discrimination based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. It often takes the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems that consider different races to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheri...

I've been asked again 'How come you are not on Facebook anymore, I was wondering where you were all this time!' I sincerely thought that I was right here all this time. LOL. Anyway, this is how I have decided to use the internet....or more accurately, social media sites and I have my reasons. Twitter is my cup of tea. There is no drama, no likes, no comments for 'other people to see or judge'. Sure, you can 'discover' a conversation thread on Twitter and it is also far more intrusive if, let's say....you are a radical activist or a celebrity or something seeking an insane crazy amount of attention but Twitter is easier to own than other social networking sites. It's quick to update and when people choose to respond, you can choose to ignore the sheez out of it without other nosy Parkers watching all of it. They can but it is much harder work. In other words, there is more control and a sense of ownership. Another unconventional social media...

Just a little humor for your Thursday. Well, tomorrow is....after all....Friday and end of school for the kids. My kids had their last school day yesterday but not for other schools, I believe. Anyway, here's a little something. Dance on, folks. It's safe. ;-P, Marsha

After all the hoo-haa about Selangor's Main Man (Menteri Besar to us over here), after all the confusion, delay, fire here fire there, Klang Gate here Klang gate there, so, Azmin Ali became our Main Man. Honestly speaking, many of us here are not into politics. We don't know what the F is going on when someone wants to put someone up there, maneuvering like a stealth aircraft here and there. The lot of us are just.....???????..... Anyway, our current Main Man is putting up all the right stops so far, say whatever we want. But one really good thing he did (HUGE CLAPS FROM ME) was to put a stop an eviction notice slapped on PAWS . I am not sure why PAWS, a long-standing Malaysian animal shelter, got an eviction notice and how it happened but this is an animal shelter. Giving it a very short-notice eviction notice is really kind of inhumane, regardless of what the shelter did. There could be another story behind all of that but as it is, we are not privy to it. Still, no mat...

Work hard and work smart, that's the only way you can survive  working from home. Some would say that the above statement says it all...but it is barely scraping the surface of what really 'working from home' really is all about. TIME magazine wrote an article about 10 things to remember if/when working from home and do you know I almost gave myself a whiplash while reading it? Here's the article - 10 Essential Habits for Working at Home Working from home or at home is, honestly speaking, a luxury. You don't have to contend with so many things that people in the corporate world have to deal with. However, even with that said, it can become a trap. One day, you might find yourself confused with a boundariless world where it is a mish-mash of 'work is everything' and 'home is everything' . You walk into the kitchen, you find yourself wondering, 'So, am I still working now or am I officially off work?' (Image source: SXC.hu ) 1. Des...