Learning to write my name

What’s new in the UAE? Another round of sandstorm after some peace for the past few days. Guess I’m getting used to it now and the rule is just to stay indoors. This weather condition affects the health of many people especially the old and young ones. One of my colleague’s 1-year old son was just admitted into hospital this morning because of breathing difficulties. He’s just rushed back to Sharjah to look after his child. This is the reality of life in such hostile weather conditions. Hope his son will get well soon.
Nothing much interesting today except I’ve learnt how to write my full name in Arabic:

کالفين تي تشو تو

Learning to write is one thing. But to type it out is difficult. My keyboard and computer goes crazy as I change from typing left > right to right > left. The cursor will just go crazy!
There was an article in the Gulf News on Malaysia entitled “Building Malaysia’s lab to promote economic reforms”. This made for interesting reading – it’s basically about the new incentives and exemptions for the Iskandar Development Region (IDR). Mainly it is about how Malaysia is using the IDR as a test bed for removal of various policies related to NEP like the bumiputra quotas and ownership policies. This is of course in reference to some recent incentives announced by Pak Lah. Perhaps this may signal further economic reforms on the national-level in the future. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how successful IDR would turn out to be. It’s probably the best thing to happen to Johore – it further reaffirms its role as the Shenzhen of Singapore! And since I’m working in Johore, I look forward to the IDR to bring some vibrancy and life to JB.
I’ve been using the Internet a lot nowadays compared to when I’m back in Malaysia. Maybe because I have my laptop online throughout the day and the speed here is faster than back in my office in JB. Censorship is done big time in UAE. Flickr and Skype are banned. So are translations for Arabic pages. Anything sensitive is not accessible. Pornography is of course of out the question. And VOIP is not allowed in UAE. So you can’t even use the *120* roaming facility by Maxis and Redtone is out of the question! The only exception to these is the Dubai Free Zone where internet and VOIP are not regulated. Don’t you wish you are in Malaysia?