Yesterday, during lunchtime, I got a phone call from a person saying they were a third-party appointed by Maybank.
The gist is: An account owner on Maybank named Saleha binti Zakaria listed my number as their emergency contact number. The account is suspected of several suspicious transactions, and Saleha cannot be contacted, so this person, on behalf of Maybank, contacted me.
My gut said this is a scam. I don’t know any Saleha binti Zakaria in my life, I don’t have a Maybank account, and, well, overall, the whole thing reeks of a scammer.
I did entertain the conversation, though. I used broken Bahasa Melayu overlapped with English, most of the time I used English, and told the guy that I don’t know any Saleha and I don’t have a Maybank account. I told him: “If needed, I can just go to Maybank and check with them.”
The guy thanked me and ended the conversation. This is where I got the doubt: The conversation was too “civil” for a scam 😅 Like, wow, he was really polite as a scammer lor, hahah. But then again, I think this is a scam. I checked the phone number on Truecall, and the number returned as the number of a teacher/principal (?) of a middle school. I highly doubt this guy is the person who called just now; perhaps number masking? Is it possible to do number masking on a personal phone number? I also haven’t contacting MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) to report the number because what if the number is actually legit and the scammer using some sort of number masking effort.
Anyway! I posted my experience on the subreddit r/malaysia here, under the mega post on commonly known scam tactics in Malaysia. Stay safe, folks! In case you suspect you got scammed or receive scam phone calls, you can report them by following the guide provided here.
For the past week, I have been preparing lunchboxes for my husband and kids. My husband usually bought his lunch at a shopping area near his office, and the kids had their lunch provided by the school canteen with a monthly fee. Things were okay-ish (or so I thought) until several weeks ago, the youngest came home and remarked how hungry she is.
“Didn’t you get your lunch already at school?” I asked, as she opened the fridge for the dozen times. “I did,” she eyed some sliced bread but shook her head, “I had the chocolate sandwich you brought me this morning for lunch.”
“Wait. What? That’s not for lunch, that’s for breakfast!”
I usually pack them “lunchboxes”, or specifically, “breakfastboxes”, since they have to go to school quite early in the morning. It is usually filled with a chocolate sandwich (toast with chocolate sprinkles/hagelslag — fun fact, in Indonesia, hagelslag is called muisjes, and yes, I’m aware that such a dish, especially as a breakfast menu, might be strange for a lot of folks, but it’s really common among Indonesians and the Dutch), some fruits, and some sweets/snacks. Then, this 8-year old looked at me and said that she ate them for lunch.
“No wonder you got so hungry! Those are for breakfast, and not as fulfilling as lunch meals!” I told her she could go to the nearby convenience store to get herself some sausage bun and milk.
Since then, I got curious. I asked both my kids on what they think of the school canteen’s food. My son commented that while the food is generally okay-ish, it didn’t suit his tastebuds much. His words: “It was not as spicy as I would like.” Mind you, this is a teenager who inhaled Buldak sauce and sambal terasi.
“… … … Of course it’s not spicy. The canteen must cater the food for all children of all ages and nationalities and cultures!”
My husband and I suggested that he bring a pack of sambal to school, even a whole bottle of it, so he could reclaim the title Sambal Boi, but he quickly dismissed it.
My daughter, while she enjoyed the canteen’s meal quite much (her preferences on spicy level are not as high as her brother’s), admitted that the meals can be quite… Normal.
That’s when I decided to prepare them breakfastboxes and lunchboxes. I also hoped that by preparing their lunchboxes, I could increase the veggie portions in my son’s daily meals.
Some days, I even made different menus for my kids and my husband. My husband decided to join in, and commented, “I like bringing lunchbox, because I don’t have to think what to eat for lunch and I don’t have to queue, hahah.”
Below is my magnum opus. The kids wanted to have (instant! Gasp! the horror!) mac n’ cheese, so I cooked an entirely different meal, Indonesian-style, for my husband. “Cooked” miiiiight be an exaggeration because the side dishes were pre-made, hahah. The only “cooking” I did was the rice, and it was using a rice cooker, and the chicken nuggest for the kids using the air fryer. For the breakfastbox, I packed them mini pancakes and sliced fruits along with chocolate sauce.
Preparing breakfast/lunchboxes can be tiring. I usually wake up at 5 AM to prepare everything and finish it by 6 AM. That said, I found joy in preparing it thanks to the cute accessories, hahah. I got myself a set of plant-designed pick and another one with animal paws design. I also got myself an onigiri mold (triangle-shaped rice) so I could put some varieties on the menu.
Some tips, in case you want to prepare your lunchboxes:
I highly recommend that you check Just One Cookbook website. They have a great guide on how to pack a bento for beginners. I particularly loved this section where they break down the types of food you can put in your lunchbox, as it gives variety and ensures you have a balanced meal in your lunchbox.
Frozen food is your friend. It’s quick, time-saving, and mess-free. I always have chicken nuggets, cheesy chicken popcorns, and even frozen gyoza on my freezer so I can use them as a side dish.
Stock up on sauces and marinade spices. I usually get a pack of chicken fillets and marinate them with teriyaki sauce, or some marinade mixture (honey soy, lemon and garlic, etc.) You can even create your own marinade sauces using light soy sauce, oyster sauce, crushed garlic, and sesame oil in 1:1:1:1 portion.
Lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber are your friends. This is a really quick and easy salad. Lettuce gives the feeling of “full” and color inside the lunchbox, and tomatoes and cucumber combo is a perfect salad for anytime of the day. Broccoli is a good option, too, but I know not everyone enjoyed it.
I tried using the Indonesian language in my previous post, and I found myself feeling “stiff” on using it. I know, the irony, I’m an Indonesian and here I am, feeling uncomfortable using my own language. I know some Indonesians out there who would love to sling mud at me because of this.
Nevertheless, I feel English would be more helpful, in a sense that not only my friends from Automattic can still read this comfortably (hello!), but it also gives me a good outlet to practice my English writing. While I’m comfortable using English and can use the language just fine on a daily basis, nothing beats the practice of writing the language. As long as I can ignore these… squiggly underlines, courtesy of Grammarly. Thank you, Grammarly, for your service, but sometimes we need to drone on and on about mundane things. You would have a blast with the late Umberto Eco.
So! I’m back using English, hahah. Also, yesterday’s posts seemed helped me getting through the blogging funk and my memories dealing with users when I was still a Happiness Engineer. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job as a Happiness Engineer, but some cases could be… A bit much. Those cases, unfortunately, somehow stuck with you more than those who didn’t. That said, I faced Site Editor bravely and even switched this blog’s themes to several classic themes such as Misty Lake. I love themes with sidebar, I can’t explain how much I love them. When I was in Automattic, I usually complained commented the lack of sidebar on our newly published themes, so when we finally had one, my teammates at that time (Jordan and Adeline) pinged me like crazy, “RETNO! WE HAVE SIDEBAR! WE HAVE SIDEBARRRR!”
I also checked Blogger because I mused on the probability of switching sides, and I found myself immensely disappointed. Say what you want about blogging, but for me, blogging is a niche. It used to be a trend, a fad when everyone and their uncles and dogs and cats had a blog, and now we don’t see the same gusto compared to, say, 10-15 years ago. The world itself still lives on, though. People still blog, and they do so with such commitment (5+ years assisting them here), but the lurking problem is the network. Remember blogring/webring? “Adopt a pixel”? “Trade blog links”? I know I do.
Blogger used to be so good at it. Heck, even WordPress.com used to do that, too. Folks could see newly published posts on the service’s homepage, or “Blog of the Month” posts, or “Blogs of Note”.
Look at it. Look how the community thrived and pulsated with new posts. No, the homepage was not minimalist or “professional” or “catered to businesses”. It was filled with texts, information, and news rivaling a PowerPoint presentation by a 100+++++-year-old Japanese company (trust me, I know. I used to do an internship with a Japanese company with a long history.) It was alive.
Now, I don’t think I can look at those services’ homepage without feeling anguish. That’s the least I could do. I usually screamed.
I checked Blogger using my GMail account, and I found myself confused: Say, I’m a new blogger and I wanted to start a blog. My first thought would be to find inspiration, but it’s really hard to find one in this social media, 140-character limit, and rage-inducing spaces. I hoped I could find and see some blogs out there, from the same service, so I know what to expect in terms of look and design, and perhaps follow them! New friends!
Nada. Zilch.
The things that I see on the screen are:
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… And blog posts from the Blogger team dated 4 years ago.
I clicked the linked “here” text, hoping that I could get some recommendations, but no. Again, only a:
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At least, at least, WordPress.com is doing better. You can find recommendations and discover new blogs on the Reader. Reader has always been one of, or perhaps THE ONE, my favorite elements on WordPress.com. Call me biased because I used to work there, but I haven’t seen similar service as Reader on other website hosts (I did check Hostinger, the host of this website, and they only have their company blog. The closest thing to “find new blog” is their client’s success stories.)
I’m not sure how Reader is being managed now. When I was still at Automattic, while the team was passionate and REALLY good at it (send your kudos to Dave Martin), I felt that the focus and the effort from the top levels outside the team were not intensive enough (cough cough, those who know me might realized that I tried to be as delicate and harmless as possible when saying it.) I hope this has changed. I really love Reader, I know some folks who have equal love for Reader — even more, and there is tons of potential there. I did see some improvements on the space, though, so that’s great.
That said, while we have the space, there is a concern about the quality of the content. I really like Stuart’s writing here: AI is going to replace me someday. With the risk of sounding “in the olden day”-vibe, the quality of our blog world is no longer there. We used to be so enthusiastic in building our communities because we knew those words were written by actual human beings. The posts were humane, alive, rich, and filled with emotions — real emotions. To create a community is to connect. The desire might be less now because we are not sure whether the posts published like a clockwork are from a living breathing human or from a freaking prompt. I also hate how people are side-eyeing actual correct grammars and punctuations, thinking those were AI works, like, EXCUSE ME, some of us actually studying, learning, and honing the craft. Who can forget that “a sure-sign of an AI work is when you see em dash on it ( — )”? That’s such an insult to the whole craft and profession. In summary: Finding a blog with well-written words from humans are such a gem. A gem, I tell you.
If I’m being honest, I have a room-temperature vibe with AI. Slightly closer to the boiling point, but still lower than a whistling kettlepot. I know its potential, I used ChatGPT to translate my comments from English to Chinese for connecting and communicating with folks on the Xiaohongshu app — I am now learning Chinese on Duolingo, BTW — but I also have my… thoughts on its generative nature. I always believe that the human arts will always triumph over everything. I mean, hey, AI won’t be able to generate those pictures, videos, and writings without stealing using the original works by actual human beings in the first place, right? 🤷
Nindya’s quick blurbs
Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.
Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.
