Rewards

I was outstation on Friday and Saturday last week for my daughter's award ceremony at her former all girls school. She received an award for best in English and cash for achieving all A1s in her Malaysian Certificate of Education. In fact she was the only one to get all As in the trial examination. The teachers were surprised as they did not expect her of such a feat even though she had been consistent throughout her school career. The teachers had expected her other colleagues to excel better. I am proud of her achievement but I feel the school should have given her recognition although she had to miss many classes by being in the school marching band. The band had participated in many competitions up to national level.The school had not been very supportive of the girls' efforts and had even labelled the girls as not being good girls. That's reward for sacrificing for making a good name for the school!The school had promised earlier that the band girls will get extra rewards should they excel in their studies but this promise was conveniently forgotten.
However I was pleasantly surprised that the new school Principal has adopted the school band as one of the school's target of excellence.The other two are to excel in Mathematics and Basketball.These missions wouldn't be hard to achieve with hard work and moral support from the school . PTA and parental support are also important to ensure the academic aspect is not neglected. I was pleased to be informed that the PTA is now very active in supporting the school. The school will also support the girls involved in the mission of excellence with better nutrition meals and maybe extra tuition for classes missed.
But, alas, these come too late for my daughter.
Anyway, I wish only the best for her former school.

Income Tax Blues

Its income tax time again. Last night I had to spend the whole night filling up the income tax forms for our small company that's forever making losses. Learnt something about capital allowances from my consultant, Rina.It was Rina who taught me how to fill the forms. Wait till we make profits, then I have to seek Rina's help again.
Tonight, my daughter is learning to fill up her form. She has been working since 2005, but has not find the time to file her income tax. Now, she goes trying to find the receipts for her laptop, books,magazines,etc, after finding out that the sthetoscope and payment made to sit for the MRCP exam are not eligible. Unfortunately, the government only encourages post-graduate learning in local universities. Sitting for foreign qualifications does not qualifiy for any rebates. Poor gal!
With e-filing, for the computer savvy, you don't need to go to the bank to pay your income tax.You can even do it on your computer.How convenient, pay your tax and then file online.But for oldies like me, I still subscribe to the manual way, filling by hand and then park and go to the LHDN office to submit my forms because I want them to stamp the date on the duplicate. This can be useful if you need to certify your income for banking and other financing needs.Even your children's scholarship applications.

A Beginning

Everybody seems to be blogging this days. I thought why not join the bandwagon.It can help me relax and reduce stress, maybe see what cyberspace is all about. My children are active bloggers and now even middle-age politicians are starting to blog.So why not, I said to myself.
After getting my youngest daughter to give an invitation, so here I am.Creating my blog was a bit of an effort since several tries were not successful in getting my address. So I settled for red meranti.blogspot.com.This is a tropical hardwood specie found in the Malaysia and Indonesian rainforest. It is not endangered yet. It is useful but not so expensive as the other species like teak,rosewood,mahogany and other exotic species.
You see I have been doing some research on the world timber industry.I chose red meranti because it signifies the environment, a subject close to my heart.Let's hope red meranti will help me find myself in cyberspace and make some friends as well.