Turtle Watching, anyone?

This being a turtle landing season, we took the opportunity to do some turtle watching at the turtle sanctuary in Cherating. Our visit to the Turtle Conservation Center didn't help as it was a public holiday and thus it was closed.
We were told that we could just come at night and wait to watch the turtles land.
We came out to the center late at night and trudged to the center. It was a full moon and we walked quietly along the beach. There was someone at the center gate facing the beach. We went over only to be told that we weren't allowed on the beach; we were supposed to wait in the center grounds until the ranger tells us if there were any landings sighted. A hall was provided for everyone to wait and rest or sleep.
We registered our names and found a chart in which they updated the number of landings over the month. Over the last few nights, there were only 2-3; the previous night, 5. According to the staff, the five turned up nearly morning, so he warned us that it might be a long wait before any landing would happen. He also mentioned that bright moon, low tide were not favored conditions. Typically, they come out if its dark, and if there are anything that make the turtles feel uncomfortable, they would leave. There had been many occasions where the turtles land and leave without laying any eggs.
We waited a while and a group of tourists came, laughing and talking at the top of their voices. Armed with bright flashlights, they were ready to make use of the time to socialize, joking about, shining lights out to the sea. A group of then decide to walk out the gate and onto the beach, the very place where we were not allowed to go.
We figured that if any turtles were around, tonight wont be the night they land. We sought out the staff to inform him that we were leaving; and we found that these were the kinds of things he faces on a daily basis during the holiday season. They allow people to come in to educate them about the turtles, but in allowing people in, they risk scaring the turtles with this kinds of behavior. Rightly, the staff says his priority are the turtles, and if he has to be unkind to people to protect the turtles, then so be it.
With the behavior I saw that night, I would agree with him.

p/s:
For the adventurous, they have tents for rent at RM30 per tent, so you can wait in the center grounds in the privacy of your own tent.

Cherating oh Cherating

We planned to go out to the Turtle Sanctuary up in Cherating to get some news on the turtle watching opportunities. Driving up there, we found that the center was closed due to it being a public holiday. We were then told that we could come later in the night to watch the turtle.
There was a nice breeze (gale?)blowing, so we took out the kite and flew it there. And fly it did! we ran out of string, and it was still tugging away, threatening to fly off. The pix here kinda says it; the speck on the top right is the kite, and the speck on the bottom left is Amalyna.
We drove up to Kuala Kemaman to get keropok and other stuff and ran into and old school mate/ bandmate. He was quite surprised to see us buy out the store.
We recalled having visited an arts and craft village in our previous visits; and along the way, we found nestled amongst village house chalets off the main road a little restaurant calles Intan Seafood. It was a thatched roof hut facing the sea, airy with the sea breeze blowing through; The ambiance was something out of the movie "the Beach" with caravans and tents parked right outside the restaurant. The interesting thing about this place was the fresh, fresh fish, and the size of the buttered prawns was to die for!



No doubt there wasnt much left in the way of leftovers. We found the arts and craft village, but renovations were just completing so they were not open.

More on Holidays

A true holiday should be filled with something different.
We spent the afternoon at the beach and at the evening had the chance to release some turtle hatchlings to the sea. Although it was a rare opportunity, we felt rather suckered at being given a bucket of hatchlings that we poured into the tide.
All said, though, it was a great opportunity to marvel at those tiny hatchlings, knowing full well not many will survive to adulthood. Their first challenge of course is to swim out to the open sea and not get stepped on by excited little feet trying to see their darling hatchlings swim out safely. of course, excited adults with popping flashbulbs despite being told not to do so was just another hazard in the life of a hatchling.
We went to a seafood place for dinner So popular it was quite a wait for food; but, no problem as the sea air makes for a hearty appetite.

The next day we went to kuantan and visited all the places we grew up at.Of course. the itenary includes Teluk Chempedak. Everyone got a chance to experience a fish Spa. On the way back we stopped by every single stall to get local kuihs, which yours truly spent the evening finishing. Can't let food go to waste, you know.

Holidays!

yup, school hols are back again.
So we packed up our bags, and jumped into the car and off we went. Holidays mean switching the phone to "holiday" mode, meaning that no calls will come through unless its from the privileged few.
Queuing up to register, we found that internet bookings were handled in a private, air conditioned room. After check- in, we were told that we were entitled to a Welcome Drink. Expecting the regular special concoction of fruit juices, we took our time. We found our welcome drink to be a buffet of sweet rolls and fruit with a choice of coffee, tea and fruit juice; inclusive of a movie being projected on a screen. Quite a novel welcome.
Now lets see if the beach lives up to expectations.

Living with RA

I’d known her for a greater portion of the last 7 years of my life, thanks to my wife who made me realize of her existence. Since then, I tried very hard to drive her away as I needed my space and my life. For a short while, it worked. She stayed away and my life returned to almost normal, but too soon, she returned. Her visits were occasional, but soon enough grew in frequency and intensity. My professional life was the first to be affected and its not anyones’ guess to find my personal life begin to take its shape around her, too. She’s not one to easily go away.
Without her, my days were like living in perpetual sunshine. In my world, the skies would be blue, the birds would be chirping in the trees and everywhere I go, there would be the gay sounds of laughing children. I would look forwards to each day knowing that I could make it the best day of my life.
Oh, how different things are to wake up with her! When she is around, there would be nothing but pain. Some days I wished I wouldn’t have to wake up; such is the misery she brought me. On some days my wife doesn’t realize she’s here and I would see that impatient glare as I make my way painfully across the living room. The swellings that accompany the pain is not immediately visible, and people around me begin to doubt my sincerity when I am not able to do the things I promise to do carrying the burden of this woman.
Whenever she leaves, my life returns to normal. I spend my days with my workmates and with my family, filling each moment with tiny bits of memory that I could keep with me in the future. Little bits of memory, like getting a roomful of teenagers excited learning about our company; like being told how wonderful to have the team participate because things are always done differently, like watching my daughter go up on stage to receive her school testimonials and watching one son proudly show off his attempt at animation and another showing off the ship he built entirely on his own out of his Lego blocks.
And almost like a display of jealousy, she would appear again; admonishing me for having a good life; and she would make sure that my night is filled with pain. A good nights. Sleep deserts me yet again, and I spend my night fighting the numbing pain, waiting for sleep to come or the sun to rise. And my life becomes dependent on my wife, who, in addition to running her endeavors and running after the kids, now has to shuttle me around as driving becomes a painful task.
Ah, my life with this woman other. Blessed I am that my wife understands the very nature of this relationship and at times I need her most, she’s there. Not many realize of this woman in my life, because no one sees her when she’s with me. Yet everytime she comes, I long for her to leave, and even when she does, I know that it won’t be long before she comes again, because such is her nature. A disease like her you cannot choose, and she chooses the ones she likes best, and once she comes to stay, she is here forever. I can only embrace her coming, and I embrace life when she leaves, because I know it won’t be long before she returns.

Empowering Teams

Over the last year, we spent quite a bit of our time helping groups of departments understand each other and develop a common understanding towards building a winning team. During this time, we left our "real world" personalities behind and work together on equal basis to identify and resolve issues that we all feel are hindering our ability to become a winning team.
What do we need to learn?
1. we all belong to a team, but its not always the "right" team. Sometimes we commit ourselves to the immediate team and forget the existence of the larger team. And sometimes we have to give way and embrace the larger team.
2. We sometimes forget the larger team and forget that management (i.e our bosses) are part of the team; we readily demand our needs against them fully forgetting that they are part of our team just as much as we are part of theirs. As a result we demand solutions rather than to work with them to resolve the issues we both face.
How may times do you ask yourself if management decisions are for the benefit of the greater group and not at your own disbenefit? How often do we find ourselves asking management to "right" their decisions rather than convince them of a better solution to benefit all of us?
These are some of the things that I learn from the team sessions. I wonder if other people also learn some of these things. Its interesting if we can share our learnings.
Empowering teams doesn't necessarily mean that teams get to decide on what's best for them, but more importantly they get to understand what the greater whole needs from them and decide accordingly.

Learning from Mistakes

Every time we facilitate for clients, I make it a point to come back with a retrospect.
A retrospect form is a simple tool where we list things that either went very well or didn't. Then we list the things that caused it to turn out that way and finally decide how things should be done differently the next time. At a recent workshop, we reviewed previous reports and found it to be quite useful to prepare for the next one.
As always, its the content that matters. Sometimes, Some people have such high expectations that they are unable to see the good things they do and events are lumped together such that its not easy to see which aspects can be improved and which need to maintain. Others can be so pessimistic that they think everything went beyond their expectations and nothing much can be improved.
All said, but that the most important part of the exercise is being able to look at the expectations objectively and identify the causes. For some its always reported as someones' fault i.e. "so and so did not..." which the actions to prevent recurrence becomes "so and so should not..." Tone others look at methods and propose controls, which is a good way to go.
Its important that we avoid blame, but to Step back and look at processes objectively. At the end of the day, blame doesn't help improve. Processes can be changed, not actions.
All said, Sometimes improvements like this can only be pointed out during reviews. I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth in the meantime.