TimothyTiah.com

I’ve been on iOS for 6 years and now that I’m on Android I know what I was missing

Posted on November 3, 2014 admin

About a year ago Shorty broke news to me that Sony was going to make her an ambassador for the Sony Xperia range of smartphones. She was excited about it but I brushed it off.

“You’re an iPhone fan… you’ll never get used to an Android. I give you two weeks max”.

Like all other challenges she said “Challenge accepted”. In the first week she kept coming to me and asking me how to do certain things on the Sony. I snickered to myself knowing that it would probably be another week before she gave up. I wondered what she would tell Sony then.

That giving up moment never came. In fact beyond the 2nd week the opposite happened. She had gotten used to the Android OS and she started loving her Sony Xperia so much that she actually won a free iPhone 5S in a lucky draw once and she gave it away to her mom. When I asked her why she just gave away what was regarded as one of the best smartphones in the world at the time, she said it wasn’t a Sony.

Not only that, I saw her proudly advocating it to her friends and even to my very own sister who ended up buying a Z2.

On my own side of things, I started having troubles with my iPhone and it didn’t help that iOS 8 wasn’t the most reliable of updates. My camera hanged every now and then, occasionally when I unlocked my iPhone with my finger print sensor it would restart the entire phone.

And worse.. iOS 8 has this annoying bug where I get a notification bar that pops up from the top when I get a message and I can’t seem to close it like I used to be able to.

It was about this time that Sony approached me to see if I was interested to work with them to review and advocate their phones if I liked it. I’ve been using the new Sony Xperia Z3 now for a few days now and I learned:

1) Android has progressed significantly in the past 3 years

My first Android experience was 3 years ago. For a few months I switched over to an Android only to switch back to my iPhone for work reasons (one of my companies develops mobile apps and I’m one of the testers for the iPhone version). Android then was very much like the Android we see today but a little bit choppier and slower.

On my Sony Xperia Z3 though it’s totally smooth. I’m not sure if this is because there were improvements in the Android OS or if because the hardware in my Sony Xperia Z3 is better than the phone I had 3 years ago (or both) but it was smooth. I had no bugs and no problems whatsoever.

2) Android is very intuitive

The new updates of iOS has taken a cue from Android in many things like when it comes to automatically updating apps when updates come out or to notification tabs that allow you to turn on or off wifi quickly and other settings.

But there’s more.

When I plugin my Sony Xperia every night before I sleep, it automatically sets my alarm for me for the next morning and silences my phone for me. The keyboard on my Sony Xperia Z3 too is a lot more intuitive and the autocorrect to me is personally more accurate than my iPhone.

When I want to call someone over Skype, I don’t have to open the Skype app and then look for his or her contact within the app. I just go to my contacts and click call and it’ll ask me if I wanted to call that person via Skype or a regular phone call. Same thing for messaging.

3) The Battery Life

Life as an iPhone user is one of constant insecurities when it comes to battery life. Everywhere I go I constantly look out for opportunities to charge my phone and top up my battery. I invest in having charging cables in my car, on my desktop in office and of course at home (Apple doesn’t exactly make these cables cheap). I also carry a power bank with me when I travel. On average I charge my iPhone 5S 2-3 times a day.

Guess how often I charge my Sony Xperia Z3 every day now?

Once.

I feel like the quality of my life has just increased just for having a battery that lasts ONE day. I don’t have to carry a power bank with me and drag along that messy USB cable. I don’t have to keep searching for a place to charge my phone and I don’t have to stock up on car chargers in every car I have.

4) The Camera

Tech blogs all over the world rave about how great the iPhone camera is and how it’s the best smartphone camera in the world because of a good combination of its hardware specs and oh software too.

I disagree with this. The iPhone camera is definitely one of the better smartphone cameras out there and does a really good job in a well-lit environment. But in a less well-lit environment, I’ve found the Sony to be much superior to the iPhone. I’m not going to go into the specs of how many megapixels a Sony has vs an iPhone (20.7 vs 8 if you’re really interested to know) because most of us don’t care about specs.

The day has passed where we cared about what processor a phone has and how much RAM. All we care about is the results it gives us. Does the Sony take a better picture? For that I have to say in my experience… yes.

Take for example just a couple of weeks ago. I was at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award cocktail and we wanted to take a picture.

Janice who was using an iPhone 5 (or 5S) at the time took a picture of us and this was what we got.

Then I asked Shorty to take a picture with her Sony Xperia Z2, and this is the picture we got.

Both taken by the same (amateur) photographer, in the same lighting and environment, just minutes away from each other.

To counter my occasionally out of focus iPhone photos in dark environments, I find myself having this habit of taking 2-3 photos of the same thing in case any of them come out a little blur. I now just take ONE picture. One GOOD picture.

5) Waterproof

I never thought I needed a waterproof phone. I mean why would I need one unless I was going to intentionally go underwater and take a picture there. Sounds cool and all but it’s not something I’m going to be doing every day.

Then one day while cycling I had my phone in my back pocket and it started raining and I realized then that I wished my phone was waterproof. To counter that I end up carrying this plastic bag and wrap my phone in it but I’ve got other things to carry too so that wrapping ends up taking up a lot of space on my back pocket.

Now I don’t have to care anymore. I just carry my Sony Xperia in my back pocket. If it rains, or pours or even if I get hit by Tsunami … well I’ll probably die then but my Sony would still be able to make calls and take pictures.

I also don’t care anymore if Fighter tips over a glass of water and spills it over my phone or if I drop my phone into the bath tub while giving him a bath.

In conclusion

Here’s the thing. It’s not that I think the iPhone sucks. Heck I’m still going to have to keep my old one around for testing mobile apps at least and I think it’s a good phone.

What I do think is that many of us long-time iPhone users have this mental block about changing OS and to me changing to an Android has been a rewarding experience. Of course I can’t speak for every Android phone out there are good Android phones and there are bad Android phones.

I’ve only been using the Sony Xperia Z3 and to me the Sony Xperia Z3 is a great phone!

If you’re thinking of upgrading your phone… I would highly recommend a Sony Xperia Z3. I love it! I love it so much that I’m probably not giving this review unit back to Sony like I’m supposed to. I’m gonna elope with it! GOODBYE!!!

Fighter’s first blog entry

Posted on November 1, 2014 admin

Okay everyone,

It’s the weekend and I’m spending some good quality time with Fighter right now. Fighter seems to have a huge affinity to laptops or keyboards. Just two days ago I was working at home on my laptop and trying to approve some online banking transactions. He crawled over to me and started banging on my laptop until he locked me out of my online banking.

I was furious! And the funny thing was he knew I was furious and then crawled to mommy and just looked at me quietly. Thinking I was going to scold him next.

So okay! This weekend I am going to let him let it rip on my laptop and publish his first ever blog entry at 1 year 3 months.

Here goes. Take it away Fighter.

Ω axzr zvvvv/ /s nnnnnnnnnnnnn

OK that didn’t quite work out. Believe it or not he was tapping on the keyboard for like 5 full minutes but the above is all he managed to type until he lost interest in it. I think he was banging a lot of keys but it wasn’t registering anything. And yes… that is an Omega symbol he managed to type. I have no idea how he did that. I mean I don’t even know how to do that.

So here you go everyone. You’re now witness to Fighter’s very first blog entry.

Being Nominated for EY Entrepreneur Of The Year

Posted on October 28, 2014 admin

Many years ago I proudly went to my Dad and told him that I’ve won an entrepreneur award. I won’t say what award it was, but it was for a business organization. Expecting my Dad to be really happy for me, he gave me some tough love. He said

That’s good son. But the most prestigious entrepreneur award is the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award. Win that and then you know you’ve won something big.

I’ve never heard much about the EY Award back then but as I did more research I began to understand why my dad has such a high regard for it. It was a strict process to even get nominated for the award. EY would ask to evaluate not just you as an entrepreneur but the financial health of your company. Past winners of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in Malaysia were Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, Lim Kok Wing and well the list goes on.

A year after talking to my Dad I got an email from Ernst & Young saying that they wanted to nominate me for the award and asked me if I would submit our financials to them and attend an interview. I politely turned it down because I didn’t feel I had achieved enough. I felt my company was still too small and that maybe they should check back again with us in a few years.

This year someone else from EY contacted me again. I talked to my accountant who happened to be from EY and asked her if she thinks we were big enough now. She nodded. So we submitted the application under the Emerging Entrepreneur category and went through the process along with some 70 or so other successful entrepreneurs.

Then came the night that they were supposed to announce the Top Nominees. I tried to ask EY if I was going to be one of the Top Nominees but they said they didn’t know until the actual announcement was made. I toyed about whether to go or not. After all I’m a super anti-social person and I avoid as many events as I can.

Then just a week before I happened to talk to my friend Bryan who won last year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year under the Emerging category for bringing Chatime to Malaysia. I asked him if he was going and he said yes… and asked me to go along just for fun since he’s gonna be there.

I’m glad I went.. because to my surprise that night when they were announcing the Top Nominees, the name “Timothy Tiah” got called out.

Until that moment I hadn’t said a word to my father about joining the award because I didn’t think that I would win anything or even get shortlisted. That’s rare because I tell my father everything.

So after the award dinner I called my Dad and told him that I was Top Nominee now under Emerging Entrepreneur for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year. To my surprise he just went “Hmm ok”…

Then I said “Do you remember when you told me years ago that this was the one award that mattered the most?”

He replied “I did? I said that? Oh… good then”.

So this nomination taught me two things. That sometimes we don’t know what we’re capable of… and sometimes even our parents forget the impact they have on us.

Thank you EY for making me Top Nominee.

And thank you Dad… for unknowingly pushing me on!

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t actually won yet. I’m just shortlisted one out of four. But being shortlisted is more than I could have asked for.

5 Things We Gotta STOP Doing at Weddings

Posted on October 23, 2014 admin

Some people say weddings are the best days of their lives and I can see why. It’s the one time in your life where all the friends you’ve made from all walks come together to celebrate the union of you and your partner. It’s also a joy to attend weddings that of your best friends, to celebrate that they have finally found love.

They’re the happiest occasions! Having been to my fair share of weddings and one for myself though I do feel there are little things that spoil a wedding in its small ways and heck some of them even happened during my wedding.

I hope after listing this here, people would be more aware of it and think twice before doing it.

1) Calling a “Yum Seng” when someone is giving a speech

I’ve seen this before. It happens less common when the bride and groom are giving a speech but more common when it’s the maid of honor or best man talking.

The slightly sad thing about asian weddings is that 80% of the seats go to friends of the parents and relatives (close and distant) of the bride and groom. Now this is all fine if they’re all there to sincerely celebrate the union of the bride and groom but often that’s not the case.

If they were, they would sincerely want to listen out to the stories about the bride and groom when they were dating or learn more about them, instead some of them go to the very extreme of calling a yum seng just when a speech is taking place. If that’s not disrespectful then what is.

I find this happens more commonly for big weddings. Because the bigger the weddings the more people you’re not closed to get invited. Small weddings have the best intimate environment where everyone is there for the sole and only purpose to celebrate the union of the bride and groom.

2) Not Showing Up After You’ve RSVP’ed

I am admittedly guilty of these on more than one occasion. Often because of work or many other silly reasons which are never good enough. Whenever this happens to me I do whatever I can to make it up to the bride and groom. I don’t take it lightly… but still, whatever I do… it’s still wrong to not show up for a wedding once you RSVP.

To be invited for a wedding is an honor. There are only a limited number of seats and a whole lot of people who want to invited or at least attend. So to RSVP and then not show up… that’s just bad. It not only takes the place of someone else who could have gone in your place but it also leaves empty seats on a table. i’ve been to a wedding once where there were only 4 people on my table of 10.

3) Saying “When your wife is right she’s right. When she’s wrong she’s still right”.

Jokes like this one is fairly common and often happen during the speeches about the bride and groom. It happens so much it’s not funny anymore ( not sure if it ever was) but we often give out an obligatory laugh.

Think about what it implies. It implies that the marriage should only be about the groom listening to his bride all the time and not about the groom having a mind of his own. That’s not what marriages are about. Marriages are about a partnership between a man and a woman to live life and start a family together for the rest of their lives.

There are many other jokes that I’ve heard at weddings that don’t bang on this. Use those instead if you want to get a laugh from the crowd.

4) Saying to the groom “Her money is her money, your money is her money”.

This is again another common bad joke that is often met by an awkward obligatory laugh. Think about what this means. Not only does it say that marriage is not an equal partnership or shouldn’t even set out to be, but it’s that money is an important enough reason for this marriage that it must be mentioned in a wedding speech. It also implies that the bride is this unreasonable person who cares all about the money.

Most brides don’t. So don’t make jokes that imply they do.

5) Extreme Bridesmaids Games

You know the games that the bridesmaids and the groomsmen play when the groom goes to pick up the bride?

These games were meant to be fun and meaningful. Fun meaning fun for both the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and meaningful as in whatever games they play have a certain meaning to the bride and groom’s relationship e.g. quizzing the groom about relationship history questions.

These games have been getting really out of hand these days so much that having your leg hair waxed off publicly is a given. I’m not sure which part of fun that brings to the groomsmen or how it relates to anything meaningful to the relationship.

But i’ve seen worse. I’ve seen a wedding where they got all the groomsmen to strip down to their underwear and get into a hot tub together. They then had to pick up mahjong tiles with their feet in the hot tub before they could come out. All this happening while cameras snapped away.

That’s not just painful and not fun.. that’s humiliating to the groomsmen who actually happen to be the groom’s best friends. This reflects terribly not on the bride or the groom, but on the bridesmaids.

So keep these games fun and meaningful. The best ones I’ve seen have the groom do tests or challenges that prove his love to her either by singing a song, answering questions about their relationship or more.

Thinking of picking up cycling? This is what you must know

Posted on October 19, 2014 admin

On the 1st of January 2014 my new year resolution was to do more cardio. Before then I played golf most of the time and while most golfers can argue that golf is exercise, one thing we can’t deny is that… it’s not cardio.

And cardio is what we need. So I decided to throw myself into the world of cycling and buy myself my first road bike. Looking back it’s been almost 10 months now that I’ve been cycling and the past 10 months have been an adventure for me. I’ve never done more exercise before in my life or felt more fit. I’ve had so many experiences and great memories just from cycling. I’m so glad I picked up cycling.

Cycling really has become a bit of a trend now with many people picking it up so I decided to write an article with some tips and about the mistakes I made so that anyone new could avoid the same mistakes.

1) Buy the best bike you can afford. Not the cheapest bike.

This is how most beginners start and it’s the exact way I started:

I was interested in cycling but not sure enough to buy an expensive bicycle. So I decided to buy the cheapest entry level road bike I could find- An aluminium Taiwanese made Merida. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t afford a more expensive bike. It was more that I wanted to try and see if this was a sport I would stick to before I committed to a more expensive bike. Besides… a bicycle is a bicycle. How much better could one perform on a RM10K bike vs an RM2k one?

To answer that question let me just say: A LOT. It’s hard to explain when you haven’t cycled yet but when you do and you’ve tried the more expensive bikes you’ll learn there is a huge difference between the cheaper bikes and the more expensive bikes in terms of riding experience and performance (far beyond the brand name). Carbon frames are far superior to aluminium frames not just because they’re lighter but because they’re stiffer and so are more energy efficient. I could go on and on and on but that’s something that could take up a whole new article on its own.

So what happened to me (and what happens to a lot of riders) is that we start with the cheap bikes first only to find ourselves upgrading to a better bike along the way and selling the old bike for half price. It becomes much more expensive for us. It’s far cheaper and cost efficient for us to decide that we want to commit to cycling and then just buy the most expensive bike we can afford.

But how do you really know if you’re going to keep cycling? This is going to be my next point.

2) Cycling is more fun with friends. Lots of friends.

Like most people I started cycling with a few friends who egged me to join it. Cycling like most sports is more fun when you have a group of friends who are really into it. So if you do have an enthusiastic bunch of friends then you can be pretty confident that cycling is something that would stick.

Don’t just stick to your friends though. The great thing about cycling is that everyone is really friendly and I’ve made many many friends just from cycling. In fact half the group I cycle regularly with now are people I’ve never known before cycling.

The important thing about cycling with friends though is being able to keep up with the group.

3) Keep up with your minimum standard of fitness

When I first started cycling the first 3 months was just really me cycling once a week and maybe 30-40KM each time. In hindsight, that wasn’t enough. I very quickly hit a plateau of how fast and far I could perform. It’s only when I started riding at least twice a week that I could see my fitness level really go up and I could keep up with most of the cycling groups I joined.

Keeping up with a group of cyclist friends on the road is super important. It’s not just because groups of cyclists are more visible to the motorist than a single rider but it’s because of this thing called “drafting”.

Riding in a group allows you to have the people in front of you block the wind resistance and that (believe it or not) makes a huge difference on how hard you need to ride and how fast you become tired. The stronger riders in the group will “pull” the group more and the weaker ones just draft behind more. Riding in groups allow even the weaker riders to ride consistently with the stronger ones… with the stronger ones doing more work and blocking the wind.

If you drop out of a group and have to take all the wind resistance on your own, it gets really really hard. So in order to keep in a group, you’ve gotta make sure your fitness level is always maintained at a minimum. That means never let weeks go by without a ride and try to ride twice a week.

4) Don’t save on a good saddle

This is one mistake I made. For too long did I stick to the basic entry level saddle that every bike comes with. Why? Because well… it didn’t really bother me unless I was on the really long rides.

Saddles make a big difference to your comfort and to your… well… balls. Most good saddles have a gap in the middle of it to allow space for one particular vein that goes around your crotch area. So it allows you better blood flow. On shorter rides it may not matter as much but on longer ones it totally does. Also cycling is sometimes linked to erectile dysfunction and other problem (though most research have actually suggested otherwise). A good saddle significantly reduces that.

5) Give your body the fuel it needs to perform

This is especially so for long rides. Cycling is one of the most intense form of exercise I know. Sometimes we push ourselves to the limits and when we do that, lots of things happen in our body and we need lots of things to keep it going. For example some of us drink Accelerade, an energy drink with natural ingredients that helps with replacing electrolytes that you body loses when you workout and also helps with muscle recovery. Some just drink Gatorade and some bring lots of bananas with them for the ride.

You learn about what to use and consume from researching online or talking to friends and then you kinda just find what you’re comfortable with.

6) Don’t be afraid to use clipless pedals

Clipless pedals are basically pedals that clip on to your cycling shoes so when you cycle it provides a very smooth circular momentum throughout. As opposed to a normal bicycle pedal where sometimes when riding your feet could move away from the pedal or when your foot moves up it doesn’t help with spinning the wheel.

I was afraid to use clipless at first. The thought of having my foot attached to the pedals made me wonder… “what if I fell down?” and am still stuck to the bike. Well in most cases clipless pedals are made to detach once you fall off the bike.

The truth is I fell down a few times when I first started using clips because it took some getting used to. But most of the falls are from a stationary position so it’s okay. Once you get used to the clipless though, you never want to cycle without them anymore. You just ride so much better.

———

So these are the tips I have from my 10 months and 2,700 KM of cycling. When you get into it, cycling is one of the most fun things you can do. I look forward to it every week!

Good luck and ride safe!

I’m blogging while getting filmed right now!

Posted on October 17, 2014 admin

Guess what everyone!

I’m having a video shoot of me right now with a camera crew from a TV channel behind me. And we’re doing one of these insert shots where the camera man stands behind me or around me while I pretend to blog or do some work on my laptop.

So I thought rather than just doing some mock entry maybe I can take this opportunity to seriously update my blog and give you guys a quick update.

In other news a big personal high for me in my life is that I just bought myself a set of new rims for my bicycle. This is how my old bicycle looks like with the rims.

And this is how it looks like now.

Gotta admit that I took a really long time to decide on these rims because they were really expensive but now that I have it. I love it. Not only does it look badass but it also gives me a much smoother riding experience and improved my performance.

But I literally took like 3 months to decide on whether to buy this or not because of the heavy price tag. I decided to do it anyway after asking my readers on Dayre whether I should buy it or not. And most.. well okay… marginally most of them said I should. So haha tadaa.

Now that I have.. I’m glad I did.

The falling stock market in the past couple of weeks has erased a bunch of wealth from people all around. This kinda taught me one thing. That whatever money we have isn’t really ours to enjoy until we have spent it on something we like. Be it a holiday or a new phone or in my case a new set of wheels.

But we often hold back because of budgeting reasons or because sometimes we feel guilty if we spend too much money. I guess it’s about striking a balance. While we shouldn’t go into debt for buying little luxuries, every now and then it’s good to spend some money on something we like. Take it as an investment in our personal happiness.

What Two Singaporeans Think of Malaysia

Posted on October 15, 2014 admin

So I was talking to two of my colleagues who are visiting from Singapore today. We first started talking about what Malaysians thought about Singaporeans and then we moved on to what they as Singaporeans thought about Malaysia.

Here is a short list.

1) Singaporeans don’t dare to say “Wah so cheap”.

When they’re in Malaysia among their Malaysian friends, they sometimes think something is cheap relative to back home (especially when converted to SGD) but they hold back from saying it as they don’t want to offend anyone.

2) Malaysians don’t like to walk

They basically got this impression from the Malaysians working in Singapore. Singaporeans are used to walking everywhere in Singapore and taking public transport but their Malaysian friends dread walking to the extent of skipping lunch sometimes.

I guess in Malaysia we’re used to driving rather than walking.

3) Malaysia has a lot of crime…. but it’s okay to go to JB

They worry about the crime rate in Malaysia. About being robbed, mugged, kidnapped and all. But for some reason they’re totally cool with going to JB over the weekend.

4) Taxis in Malaysia are unsafe

Probably from the influence of high profile cases like this, these two Singaporeans seem to think all taxis in Malaysia aren’t safe.

But hey at least authorities are working to catch the culprits.

5) All the hawker food you find in Malaysia is awesome.

This one I heard from Xiaxue.

When she arrived late at night a few days ago I asked her what she wanted to eat for supper and she said anything. She said all the hawker food in KL tastes good. While I said that to be fair there are some bad ones too she has yet to taste anything she would consider bad.

6) Malaysians are helpful and resilient

They find Malaysians generally humble and helpful. Not just among people you meet in public but among their co-workers or friends.

With relatively low incomes and high cost of living they find Malaysians resilient and wonder how we manage to always find a way to survive.

What Two Singaporeans Think of Malaysia

Posted on October 15, 2014 admin

Here is a short list.

1) Singaporeans don’t dare to say “Wah so cheap”.

2) Malaysians don’t like to walk

I guess in Malaysia we’re used to driving rather than walking.

3) Malaysia has a lot of crime…. but it’s okay to go to JB

They worry about the crime rate in Malaysia. About being robbed, mugged, kidnapped and all. But for some reason they’re totally cool with going to JB over the weekend.

4) Taxis in Malaysia are unsafe

Probably from the influence of high profile cases like this, these two Singaporeans seem to think all taxis in Malaysia aren’t safe.

But hey at least authorities are working to catch the culprits.

5) All the hawker food you find in Malaysia is awesome.

This one I heard from Xiaxue.

6) Malaysians are helpful and resilient

They find Malaysians generally humble and helpful. Not just among people you meet in public but among their co-workers or friends.

With relatively low incomes and high cost of living they find Malaysians resilient and wonder how we manage to always find a way to survive.

Things Shorty & Fatty Say #340 & #341: Big Ticket Items

Posted on October 12, 2014 admin

#340

Me: I must say I’ve been really prudent this year. I haven’t bought any big ticket items at all. Quite proud of me.

Shorty: *cough*

Me: What?

Shorty: How about your bicycle?

Me: What! That’s for exercise ma.

Shorty: Exercise what! If you want to exercise only you can buy one of those cheap bicycles with a basket in front for going to the market and a bell that goes *ding ding*.

#341

Me: Hey remember this f*ck, kill and marry game where you choose which one you would for these 3 characters? Check out this Buzzfeed article about who you should f*ck, kill and marry.

Shorty: Ok. *goes through list*

Me: Okay how about this one. Harry Potter, Christian Grey from 50 Shares of Grey and Edward Cullen from Twilight.

Shorty: Kill Edward Cullen. Definitely. (Shorty hates Twilight).

Me: Ok no surprise there. What else?

Shorty: Marry Harry Potter and f*ck Christian Grey. Can’t marry Christian Grey. I don’t want SM for the rest of my life.

When we found out Shorty was pregnant again

Posted on October 8, 2014 admin

I was sitting on my bed one night banging away on my laptop just like what I’m doing now. Out of the blue and for some random reason, Shorty decided to take a pregnancy test and proceeded to disappear into the bathroom to do it.

I was oblivious to it all. Shorty couldn’t be pregnant. For one we haven’t really started planning for the second child yet because our doctor told us that given Shorty’s complicate pregnancy the last time, it was best we wait a minimum of 2 years before the next delivery. That means Shorty had to wait till 15 months after Fighter was born before we could try again. We were only at about 13 months. 2 more months to go.

As I was typing away on my laptop I heard Shorty shout from the bathroom
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!”.

I stopped typing to pause for a while. I knew what that meant… that it probably meant the pregnancy test came back positive but I didn’t know how to react yet so for the next 30 seconds I just carried on typing on my laptop.

Then my mind finally knew what to do and issued orders to my body to walk over to the bathroom where Shorty was. I asked her “What’s up?”.

She showed me her pregnancy test. She was pregnant once again. I immediately went “That’s great news!” only to be met by a lack of enthusiasm by her. Then she suddenly broke down crying.

I asked why and she said she hadn’t prepared herself yet for her next pregnancy. That she was still breast feeding and she’s feeling overwhelmed about having to go through a whole pregnancy again especially since she had a really difficult one the last time round.

I couldn’t really understand how she felt to be honest. I mean I felt nothing but happiness knowing that I have a second child on the way plus I know how difficult it is to conceive. I used to envy couples who got pregnant by accident or without having to plan. Now I am one of those couples with this accidental gift and I felt nothing but joy. It’s like striking a lottery.

I realize though that at times when I fail to understand why my wife feels certain ways, I have to stop trying to ask questions to understand but really just listen. So I listened to her and after it all I reminded her what a blessing it was… and yes that her previous pregnancy was difficult (having spent a month in the hospital before Fighter was born) but look at Fighter now!

I blamed it all on hormones. That her hormones were making her really emotional and eventually though she began to be thankful and excited about this second child we’re having. When we went for her first ultrasound, we saw “bump” (our temporary name for him/her now) sitting up like a Buddha and Shorty thought he was super cute. Right there and then whatever feeling she had of not being ready quickly dissipated. She was ready to be a mother again. A mother of a second wonderful child.

The slightly bad news is that our doctor said that given Shorty’s history with pre-eclampsia, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy. There is a good chance that pre-eclampsia will happen again and we just hope that it will happen later rather than sooner. It sounds scary. But all we can do is pray… because we know at the end of it… the reward will be a second beautiful child that God has blessed us with.

So that’s what happened when we found out Shorty was pregnant with “bump”.

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Today I had some sort of an adventure. Shorty brought Fighter to come see me for lunch and mid-way Fighter decided to take a poop. I ended up being the one who had to take him to the changing room and change his diaper.

It was a bit of an eventful episode and I happened to blog about it here on my Dayre. So if you haven’t read it yet please click here.

Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space

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