Family

LAURA ATKINSON: In Search of the American Dream

/ Alan Atkinson / 2 Comments

by LAURA ATKINSON

For those of you who don’t know, I graduated from Millikin University with a degree in Entrepreneurship in December. I am an international student from Malaysia, on an OPT visa, available to start immediately, and will not require an H-1B visa sponsorship until next February. I have spent the last five months furiously applying for jobs in Illinois and so many other states in the US. Each week, I complete an average of 2 to 3 interviews for various positions. Despite graduating with a 3.84 GPA, being involved in student-run ventures, multiple organizations on campus, and being a collegiate athlete for Millikin, I have so far been denied for many positions and have yet to hear back from many positions that I have applied/interviewed for.

Most of the positions I have recently applied to are part-time and pay minimum wage. They do not require high school diplomas or skilled experience.

Just over 3 and a half years ago, I took the risk of flying to a different country, almost 10,000 miles away from my family, my friends, my home. I was raised hearing that America was the Land of Opportunity, that if I rollup up my sleeves and put my nose to the grindstone, I could find a job that I love and a place to call home. I came to find the American Dream but am still searching for it. I am putting myself out there and applying for hundreds of jobs. I want to be able to give back to this country by working here, and my parents who are back home in Malaysia.

All this is to say that

A) I am in immediate need of either remote work and am willing to relocate to any state and

B) Many fresh international graduates want to work.

We are applying tirelessly to work and are getting rejected because we would require a visa sponsorship in the future. Even with jobs that do sponsor a visa, they require 8-10 years of experience. If you or someone you know is in charge of hiring at a workplace right now, I encourage you to consider hiring a young international person. We work hard to achieve our goals and now want to get hired.

Hire me, you’ll thank me later.

NOTE: Please help make this viral.

WE-MEN OR WOO-MEN

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

That’s a toughie! Almost a day does not go by when we are involved in a conversation or chance to overhear people talking about “woo-ing-men”. This conversation is either by men, women, or both.

So, we began to wonder why these people try to woo men. Sounds like getting them to fall into a trap. Many times they do.

Then, when you hear a conversation with “we men”, you may be forgiven to think that that’s all us men have to talk about besides, sports, drinks, business, gambling, investment and of course, women.

It all boils down to that – WOMEN.

The English language can be so confusking at times…well, actually most of the time.

Take the word, “Woman“. It is singular for a woman – a lady be she your wife, mother, sister, aunt, girlfriend. Woman is pronounces as “woo-man”, not “whoa-man” (sounding like this).

What is the plural for woman? Hang on to your seats…It is “Women” pronounced as “we-men”. Yes, take note of its spelling. It is not pronounced as “woman”.

So, ladies, gentlemen and those who rather not say, there you have it. A confusing word or words in the English language made simple to understand.

As this is International Women’s Day, I give recognition to the women who inspire me daily:

My wife, Jeannie; who has been by my side for over 27 years, supporting me in all my aspirations.

Laura, my daughter, who inspires me to think up new ideas and challenges.

My mother – who, by still making her world famous cakes, makes a statement that age is only a number.

Mother Mary, who has always been by my side.

The list goes on…

While this “celebration” or “recognition” is one day only, I don’t think it should be so. I think women should be recognized by merit in all that they do; every day. They are just as good or even better if given the opportunity to do so.

Celebrating International Women’s Day with Jeannie, we had dinner at Kar Heong Restaurant – Jeannie’s choice. The food was excellent. I had plain 1 ton noodles. It is Wanton noodles. Jeannie had plain Hor Fun (yes fun) noodles. The dishes we ordered were char siew / siew yoke; steamed chicken breast and tougey (bean sprouts). The condiments were the plain soup that came with my wanton noodles, the chili and ginger. The chili and ginger is a must have regardless of how crazy spicy they are. Perspiration for sure and tears streaming down faces for the uninitiated. The servings seem to be shrinking each time we patronize this restaurant. The prices remain the same.

Jeannie’s very green drink was umbra. Though one could feel the fibres going down as it was drunk, it was delicious. I went for the iced-coffee. Pretty good if I don’t say so myself. There wasn’t any after taste that many brands of milk have. So, I could actually get the taste of coffee.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY TO ALL WOMEN WHO MAKE THIS WORLD POSSIBLE.

With my two most favourite women, Jeannie and Laura. Perfect. This was Jeannie’s and my last day in Decatur, Illinois; just before heading to Chicago (December 31, 2022).
This picture was taken with a Samsung S21 Ultra. I wonder how much better it would be if it was taken by a Samsung S23 Ultra.

Dinner at Kar Heong.
I had plain 1 ton noodles. It is Wanton noodles. Jeannie had plain Hor Fun (yes fun) noodles. The dishes we ordered were char siew / siew yoke; steamed chicken breast and tougey (bean sprouts). The condiments were the plain soup that came with my wanton noodles, the chili and ginger. The chili and ginger is a must have regardless of how crazy spicy they are. Perspiration for sure and tears streaming down faces for the uninitiated.
Jeannie’s very green drink was umbra. Though one could feel the fibres going down as it was drunk, it was delicious. I went for the iced-coffee. Pretty good if I don’t say so myself. There wasn’t any after taste that many brands of milk have. So, I could actually get the taste of coffee.

REPUBLISHED: The Swim Athlete’s Future

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

Her swim career started round about this time😊

The article, “The Swim Athlete’s Future”, which was published here at http://www.leatherpotato.com on February 7th, 2023; was republished in Swimswam on February 10th.. I sent in the article to Swimswam to have them consider publishing as I believe that readers of this publication maybe able to resonate with these article.

There are three main groups who will be able to identify with this article:
1. The swim athletes: Through the various stages of their career; from beginner right up to world elite.
2. Parents. The sacrifices of their time, effort and money.
3. Non-swim fraternity. They may have a better insight of the life of a swim athlete.

Who is “SwimSwam”? SwimSwam news is a swimming news organization covering competitive swimming along with diving, water polo and synchronized swimming. SwimSwam launched as a website in March 2012 and quickly became the most-read swimming website in the world.

This may just be the sport parents are looking for their children. It encourages, discipline, competitiveness, fun and a sense of empowerment.

To the finish line…

https://leatherpotato.com/2023/02/07/the-swim-athletes-future/

The Swim Athlete’s Future

/ Alan Atkinson / 1 Comment

Lap after lap. 3, 4, 5 kilometers a day in the pool. Day after day…week after week…month after month.

At 9 years old, wanted to be world champion. Forgoing parties, events and other fun things.

In the water, lap after lap after lap. 20 meters…50 meter lengths.

School holidays and other holidays – the same.

Personal times for her 50 meter and 100 meter pet events kept dropping… So did the times of her other events. Kept on improving. Kept moving up the heats… From the 1st heat in the very beginning… Kept moving up the heat charts. When she reached the last 3 heats in her events at each championship race, the state athletes at that time started paying attention to her. A new kid on the block as competition.

13 years old. A big responsibility added on. Selected to represent the state team. Swim and training was now an average 9 times a week (twice each on Saturday and Sunday).

Kept on at it. Times kept improving. Was a contributor towards the team’s many championship wins. Within a short period of time, reached the top 3 in the country for her age group. Broke individual and relay records all along the way.

Graduated from high school. Went on to further her studies in the U.S.

Was on the university’s swimming team. Helped the university move up the swim charts. Set individual and relay records for the university.

There were many ups and downs, bumpy roads, disappointments, total excitement and joy throughout her swim athlete, school and university story. She held fast to her belief in herself and her goals. She had fun. It was not so much just about the “winning”. It was the “experiences” take away: winning yes, also teamwork, sharing and building relationships with various people along the way.

The role of parents? Support, love, care, support. Always be enthusiastic for your children. Driving them to 3-hour daily training and then back.

As parents, we have to continuously encourage them, even on the days they may be tempted by non-athletes to skip training. My wife and I use to tell our daughter, “your fiercest competitor will be training while you are thinking of missing it. The decision is yours. What is the end result you want?”

Be with them, cheering them on; even if it means spending 15 hours at a swim meet, each day on a three- or four-day championship.

Past and current swim athletes, when looking back; can relate to this “grueling lifestyle” during their swim career. When looking back they can smile, joke about the times their energy was completely spent and they still had 25 meters of the race to go, times when they lost and the many times when they won both in the pool and out of the pool. About the times they literally had fun.

Now, graduated – B. Sc. Entrepreneurship. Looking for a job in the U.S. With 16 years of swim athlete experience and an Entrepreneurship studies degree; she wants to share her experiences by applying them in the work that she will be doing.

Now, she takes with her a way of discipline in doing things, a “never give up” character and the bright side of things when she goes employment hunting.

~ Dedicated to Laura Atkinson

The 15th Day

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

Chap Goh Mei which is today, is the last day of the Chinese Lunar Year celebrations or Chinese New Year. The day is celebrated similarly to the day before Chinese New Year, it is celebrated with much joy and festivity. This is the year of the Rabbit. The rabbit (兔) is the fourth in the twelve-year periodic sequence (cycle) of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. (1) The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture. (2)

On the night of Chap Goh Meh, unmarried girls will throw tangerines (oranges) in the sea or river in the belief that they will be able to marry good husbands. I don’t know how the guys could identify which tangerine belonged to which girl “in those days”. Today, maybe the girls will write their name, telephone number and Instagram or TikTok ID (Facebook is for senior citizens, so they’ll skip adding their Facebook ID) on each and every tangerine with permanent ink pen markers.

Jeannie and I decided to celebrate this last day of festivities in a small way. We went to Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre in Subang Jaya. (3)

Since Laura is away in the U.S.; we decided to stop by at one of her favorite stores in this shopping Centre – Popular Book Store. Laura loved to shop for stationery especially in this store – pens, pencils, color pencils, magic ink, glitter ink, various types of writing and note books, and drawing pads. She had hundreds of these writing instruments in various shades, sizes and color. She is quite the artist, too; follows after her mother. Me? I can’t draw two straight lines with a ruler. We had quite a good time. Jeannie and I purchased a few items.

We had coffee at the Oriental Kopitiam (4) (naturally. It wouldn’t have been so traditional if we had coffee at Starbucks, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf or at the mamak (5)). We had to have Oriental Kopitiam’s signature coffee. It was pretty good. We had butter with kaya on toast bread – one of the usual eats when one drinks kopitiam coffee. I had to also have Black Glutinous Rice or in aspirated local terms, “Pulut hitam”. Simply one of my favorites. It had two sort of glutinous balls with black sesame paste inside. People: it’s worth the try.

Jeannie spent a bit of time at her favorite stores; too. I…yes; at the gadget stores. Nothing really much going on in this area. You can find loads of interesting and cool new gadgets on the web, but they hardly seem to make their way to this part of the world.

5 hours later, we were on our way home. It was a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon, relaxed and had fun.

Jeannie and I with three gold boat-shaped ingots (part of the deco).

Year of the Rabbit.

I know, I know… I am not suppose to be on the bridge, but under it, waiting to collect oranges…er.. I mean find “that special orange thrown over by a lenglui” (6). I figure that since I am already spoken for; I might as well collect as many oranges from the lenglui(s). The guys aren’t waiting under the bridge. They are at home on their phones or PS5 games.😁

NOTES:
1. Wikipedia
2. Chinahighlights.com
3. Subang Jaya is a city in the state of Selangor, Malaysia.
4. “Kopitiam”: a coffee house serving traditional Malay and Chinese fare.
5. “Mamak”: Mamak stalls are indoor and open-air food establishments particularly found in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia.
6. “Lenglui”: Pretty girl.

FUSION FOOD?

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

It was a busy and tiring evening. The evening started by us (Jeannie and I) having to endure the traffic crawl for an hour in P.J. to Subang Jaya. A couple of drops of rain and almost everyone stops to take pictures of the raindrops.

Got back home with our sanity still in tack. Oh. Just kidding about what I said earlier about a couple of raindrops. It was a wee bit more than that.😉

Since the whole evening had promised loads of work to do in advance; I had to have a quick dinner. So, Jeannie helped rustle up something almost to go, after she asked if I was ok with the choice of food. Which I was, wa-a-y-y-y more than ok:

Main serving: German chicken sausages with roti canai. The side dishes were green cucumbers (unpeeled dark skin), KFC whipped potato and cherry tomatoes. Don’t know why they are called “cherry tomatoes”. They are bigger than cherries and almost always in the color of orange; not red or green. Beverage was hot (not piping or boiling hot; just drinkable hot) Ovaltine.

The meal was great. Managed to get some work done. Never ending. One of the mysteries of life. Not complaining.

The Lavender essential oil which is very gently filling the room with its beautiful aroma; is being diffused through the diffuser (of course) in the corner of the room…

Healthy, Simple Dinner

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

After what was a very sweet coffee evening on Saturday, with the white chocolate cake that at one glance looked like a serviette dispenser; which tasted very nice, the white chocolate cake, that is; at The Social in Empire Gallery Shopping Centre; Jeannie and I decided to go for very simple food at Kar Heong “Restoran” (the Bahasa Malaysia spelling for the word “restaurant”) at dinner time.

Describing the picture above clockwise, I had the plain noodles & soup since I don’t eat rice (I stopped eating rice 15 years ago), two plates (1 each for Jeannie and me) of steamed chicken breast meat, toothpicks (in the red capped dispenser), sweet black sauce in the green dispenser with black vertical lines, soy sauce, red chili sauce (a must have when you eat steamed chicken with or without rice), a little container of what looks like white pepper, a plate of towgey (bean sprouts) that is a delicious side dish for a meal like this (to the left of my iced coffee, more popularly known as “kopi peng” in these parts); two small saucers of the red chili sauce. a bowl of ginger (the ginger adds the balance in flavor to the chicken), my iced coffee and Jeannie’s hot coffee (at the top of the picture).

I found eating my noodles and soup which I think was “hor fun”, with plastic chopsticks and soup spoon quite tricky. I couldn’t seem to get the noodles and soup to stay on the spoon with the pair of chopsticks. The noodles just kept slipping off the spoon no matter what I did to try keeping it on. I picked up pieces of chicken with the chopsticks to put on the slippery noodles on the spoon, and then add the chili sauce and ginger to it. I had to use an ordinary commoner’s (haha 😁) spoon and fork, which didn’t make all that much of a difference. I ended up with splashes of soup drops on my shirt. Quite an adventure. This happens all the time. I have yet to master these skills.

Jeannie and I came to the same conclusion: the food was delicious. We finished every bit of it and we were full. Yes, we enjoyed our meal.

As for my soup-splashed stained, shirt; it happens all the time. There’s a funny little saying😏 between Laura, Jeannie and me: “Can’t take you out anywhere” 😂 whenever any of us spill something. 😁Jeannie was egging me on to come to have this meal for over a couple of months. Finally, we did.

There are two or three Kar Heong Restoran within the same vicinity. The restaurant that we had our dinner at is located in SS14, Subang Jaya.

When I got home at about 8.30pm, I had to go for my 10,000 step walk. I met with my neighbor Sim and his wife. They had just begun their walk, too; which they do after dinner. We had a nice chat along the way. The weather was good, quite cooling. We completed our walk within the hour. A good short workout.

NOTES:
1. Jeannie and Laura are family.
2. Subang Jaya is a city in the state of Selangor, Malaysia.
3. Jamie Oliver and I are not on the same level as food critics. He is for the cameras, audience and the moolah. I am just a plain simpleton, telling it as I see..em..taste it. Hahaha😂😂😋

Exercise by Retail Therapy

/ Alan Atkinson / Leave a comment

Quite and eventful outing. It was about 3.00pm. Jeannie and I decided to go to Mid-Valley Shopping Centre. I still had not gone for my daily 10,000 step walk at that time.

So, I decided to window-shop all the shops in The Gardens and Mid-Valley Shopping Centre itself. Managed to complete the 10,000 steps while Jeannie went to several stores, the last being Metrojaya.

On our way home, we decided to swing by The Social at Empire Gallery, Subang Jaya; for cake and coffee. Good thing I did the 10,000 steps. The white chocolate…something cake which Jeannie chose; had a kezillion calories in it.

Initially, when the cake was first served; I not having paid much attention to it, thought it was a serviette dispenser. 😂

The Third Day. The Festivities Continue…

/ Alan Atkinson / 2 Comments

Its the third day of the new year, Chinese New Year, that is. Malaysia being Malaysia; the choice for food is endless, regardless of festivities. Having said that, at festivals, as it is now, Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year; cookies and certain types of food are specially prepared only during this festivity. Love it.

However, today; Jeannie and I joined her parents, her sister Judy who is here in Malaysia for the holidays; and Jeannie’s and Judy’s cousin, Cecilia; her husband Siow and their son, for lunch at Kayu Nasi Kandar in Taipan, USJ Subang Jaya; today. The food was good. I abstained from rice…of course. Stopped eating rice since 2007.

Before long, it was dinner. I said to Jeannie, “It’s been a long time since we have had satay”. So, off we went to the Taj Curry House in SS12, Subang Jaya. The diva took our order of roti canai and Nescafe kurang manis (less sweet which means less sugar). We placed our order for 5 sticks each, of chicken and beef satay with the satay chef, or the griller…better known as “boss”.

The meal was very nice. The satay was well marinated, the beef more on the sweet side. We were kind of full by the end of the meal. Delicious! Total cost of the meal US$6.30.

The 5 sticks each, of chicken and beef satay (skewed on the sticks), in the middle. It came with cucumber, onions and kutupat (rice cake); all of which is dipped in the somewhat sweet peanut sauce, which in some restaurants may serve a more spicy version.

As soon as I got back, which was about 8.15pm; I went for a short 7km walk to work off some of this meal. I joined Sim, my neighbor from a couple of streets away for the walk. It started to rain about 10 minutes after I started walking and then became intermittent. Our walk was cool and pleasant, though a bit wet.

Enjoy and have a great day ahead.