HLP

That stands for Healthy Lifestyle Programme. For Shell employees thats a must. Everyone must participate. In so many ways, its very useful and I am fully supporting the initiatives. This programme was introduced 3 to 4 years ago when all Shell employees are asked to go through health check, done by the Panage Health Centre. It was widely known and acknowledged that most Bruneians and in our case Shell employees were either overweight, under lots of stress, smokers and not doing enough exercise, thus this HLP was introduced.

What Shell tries to emphasise is everyone has to make their own initiatives to look after themselves, control your own destiny in terms of health and to have a work life balance. Thats so important. I know some Shell people who work until 7 to 8pm at night. And we dont usually take breakfast breaks and go round town to have breakfast. Its very unhealthy to be workaholic. But this culture is already instilled in our core being. We work hard for the company and of course for the money.

And the management awares of that now. So by having this programme, the management hopes that the people can take a breather from work and have fun. Like from my previous department, they had so many fun and enjoyable activities which was great.

The way HLP works is, first and foremost, the health check for all employees. Usually blood sample was taken, amongst other things like your blood pressure, urine, weight, height and BMI. Then we have our review done by the nurses as the review panels and if things dont look so good then we are referred for further analysis or diagnosis. Apart from the health check, each departments have their own programme to stay healthy. We have exercise say once a week, once within 2 weeks, or do any interesting activities such as hiking, brisk walking, aerobics, etc. Its so fun and so far I do enjoy it. Of course I think health is important and who else to control our own body apart from ourselves? From this health check also I was caught with having high blood pressure! And now on medication for life. But its ok, that disease couldnt be avoided if you are a Bruneian, unfortunately.

The health check expires within 3 years, and my last check was 3 years ago so I am due for one now. Lets hope my results are better this time around.

My review will be on the 6th of May, I will go to the panel and review my blood test. I am nervous but I know my overall health improves a bit since I have done lots of cutting down, merely because of our plan in June. So we will see.

Trying it out.

Spent our sunday morning at Yayasan and Kg Air, while my girl was at her school for her girl guide badge presentation done by Yang Teramat Mulia Princess Hajjah Masnah. While waiting for her to finish we tried out our new camera and captured all these images. Here are some of them.

How long it takes..

If you are interested in how long it takes the items we toss into our garbage to decompose?

Read on:

Paper ................... 2 to 5 months
Orange peels ............ 6 months
Milk cartons ............ 5 years
Filter-tip cigarettes ... 10 to 12 years
Plastic bags ............ 10 to 20 years
Leather shoes ........... 24 to 40 years
Plastic containers ...... 50 to 80 years
Disposable diapers ...... 75 years
Tin cans ................ 100 years
Aluminum cans ........... 200 to 500 years

Styrofoam ............... Never

I wish the supermarkets stop giving us plastic bags and use paper bags instead but I dont know if the supermarkets even care. I for one still use lots of plastic bags even styrofoam but now that I know how these products can stay in our environment for a long time, I wish I could do more to avoid using them. One thing for sure, these products can be recycled so that they would cause less pollution and havoc to the environment if dumped in the dumping areas.

Nikon D90

My hubby bought a new camera, very cool. We both are interested with photography these days but he knows much better on how to take good pictures than me. There is so much to learn and I am starting to know bits and pieces of taking good pictures, and things like apucture, shutter, ISO, wide lense and so on. The camera is awesome, so powerful and we can do so much. I took below pictures as starters which I think is cool.

The pictures were taken last night when we had dinner at Charcoal and Grill at Jalan Tutong. And I took this girl picture while she immensed herself watching tv. She didnt realise I took it while at the same time learned how to use the camera. And the result is just fantastic. And the other two were taken at home, one is from our fridge and the other was the donout we bought from Yayasan.

The Cough

The cough is still bugging me. I have the worst time of my life. Cant sleep properly, and get tired in the morning. All because of this cough. It really persistent and as a result I have the worst case sore throat ever. It is mighty painful to swallow. I cant eat right very very frustrating. I have taken so many cough syrups, different colours and taste, from our company hospital and from private clinics, also from the supermarket but none works. Hubby also has his fair share of cough, he is struggling too. We both are struggling. Usually we cough to each other which is really funny, what a pity and awful sight. I wonder when this gets better? Its lucky my girl hasnt got it yet. I dont know how she manage to avoid it living with two people who cough all the time.

The new Amah has arrived.

Got a phone call yesterday from our new agent, saying exactly that. Thats record time of less than one month of getting an Amah. Excellent. But now I have a mixed feeling. Its been nice to be without amah, although life is busy but I enjoy the alone time. Its quiet and nice. However, need amah to sort out all the housework. I think the house need alot of spring cleaning now. I havent done any house cleaning apparently the house was spotless when our amah left. We just do the day to day house chores like cooking, cleaning the dishes, laundry, ironing and things like that. But not the heavy stuff like cleaning the windows, mop the entire floor and so on. So its about time, the house cleaning is now overdue!

We may go and collect her tomorrow, if the time permits. For now she is taken around for medical checks, and other things. So we gonna stay away for a few days.

I am a bit weary and skeptical. She is just 18 years old, wonder if she can do her job. I hope she will be good.

Busy Life

Its been a month since our Amah has gone. And so far we are doing ok, I think. Things have gone to a routine which is nice. The one thing I love most about being without Amah is the privacy of it all. We have no stranger in the house. I can go around in my underwear if I want to but of course not ;-) My girl is getting more independent, she stays home on her own while we are at work. Weekends she cooks her own breakfast, week days she heats food I cooked for her lunch. Do her homework and put away clothes from the hanger outside and fold them neatly and nicely. She looks after Robbie too and wash all the dishes.

But still I have to rush to do everything when I get home from work. Reached home usually around 6pm or later if we have to do some grocery shopping, look for things to cook for dinner, that sort of things. I try to be systematic when doing the housework since I don’t have lots of time in the evening and because I am so dead tired already but have to do it. The first thing I do when I reach home is go right to the kitchen, take out food for dinner and cook the rice. Put all the dishes, plates, cookery and all the glasses back to their places from last night. Then I go and take a shower and do my magrib prayer. Then I rest for about 5 minutes depends on the situation. Off to the kitchen, do all the cooking including all the preparations, cut the chicken or fish, vege and fruits, the onion, chillies and everything else. At the same time I also take the whole basket of laundry and wash the clothes. Very happy that we have washing machine which can do everything on its own and in one go, all I need to do is to dump the dirty clothes in the machine and I am back to the kitchen. I don’t even have to be there to do anything else, so glad that we bought that machine.

Around 8pm have dinner with my hubby and Ayang. Wish we could have dinner earlier but its just not enough time in the world! After dinner, Ayang or hubby help me with the dishes while I boil the water for our drinks, tidy up a bit and prepare vege dinner for Robbie. And make tea put it in a thermos for tomorrow breakfast before work. By this time the laundry is ready to be put outside so I do that at around 9pm. Once thats done, its time for me to iron the clothes. Try to do as much as I can, need to sort out my girl school uniform for the next day and hubby and my clothes too. My last task for the day is to take out the gabbage outside. All done by 10pm and its time for me to hit the bed and drift off. Of course has to wake up again at 4.45am the next morning for work.