About Those You Love

The people closest to you.

Who are they?

What do they really mean to you?

Why are they so important to you?

Asian put a lot of emphasis on the importance of their family. We consider our family the closest human beings to us. Well, not only for Asians, maybe.

Then you find the love of your life and you get married. Your spouse becomes another person who is closest to you.

So now, you have your family and your spouse and your children.

Then you have your friends who has been through thick and thin with you. Those friends who will come rushing to your aid when you call and the ones who will laugh and cry with you. the friends who knows when to scold and lecture you and who knows when to shut up and just sit quietly.

With all these people around us - where does God come into the picture?

He was and is - in everything and everyone.

GREEN GENERATION

I LOVE HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS KILLING US AND FUTURE GENERATIONS WITH LACK OF POLICIES FOR ENVIRONMENTALISM




There is an Earth Day on 22 April. Where a Green Generation Campaign will start. So many 'green' campaigns have started and wilted.

It does make me wonder how this campaign will pull through.

It's not that we don't care. We think that the earth will not 'die' yet within our generation, so it's not our concern.

In Malaysia, the effort to stay 'green' is so minute that it's a wonder how we will fare in future.

I see large huge trees being cut down in Johor Bahru. I see their big long branches, that took them 50 years to grow, be sawed down within 50 minutes. I go to a new shopping area in Kuala Lumpur and wonder how they could build so many offices and shops into such a small space, with not one trace of tree taller than me.

(No, that wasn't the tree they cut. It's uglier than that. I borrowed that from a blog.)


I look at all the garbage we throw out and wonder how we dispose of it. I look at the thermometer on my watch and am amazed at how it can be 35 degrees celcius in the shade at 1pm.

We're committing suicide.

Even a small island like Singapore has more sense to put aside areas for jungle and parks.

Our cities are so dense and parks and large green areas so few, it's amazing that we're still breathing.

But we're not exactly breathing right. We have more and more children and adults having asthma, sinus problems and constant coughs. We are visiblly weaker and our immune system is slacking.

I just read their website, http://www.earthday.net , where they want this campaign to be one where globally, more governments start making policies for 'greener solutions'.

Little initiatives such as using your own shopping bags have been ongoing for a long time. But we're still ASKING for more plastic bags when we shop at Giant and Tesco because we want the bags for our rubbish. We think it's recycling. Well, think again.

Singapore makes the shoppers pay 5 cents for every plastic bag used.

Australia does not provide plastic bags anymore. You don't bring your own bag, you carry them individually in the cart, and unload them individually to your car.

We're still asking for MORE bags.

I shall try it one day, to go shopping and ask all of them not to give me a plastic bag.

What about you?

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

It's my birthday and this blog needs a post.

So I wish myself all the best in this year after becoming 31 and hope that I will face this year with gusto and a greater love for God.

I love all of you!

Coffee or Tee or Me

DIAGNOSIS:

Possible lack of coffee resulted in headaches and heightened anger manisfestations.

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A cup of coffee a day keeps the sleepiness away.

Its taste is bitter and its aroma is strong.

Its colour is black and its preparation is fussy.

I love coffee.

You have the gourmet coffee. The kopitiam kopi-o. 3-in-1 instant mix coffee in sachets. You can find coffee beans in a bag in a cup. You can mix coffee with milk , with sugar, with liqueur or with tea.

I just love coffee.

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Chef Charlotte

THAT, up there, is something I cooked at Hosanna's new house.

Menu:

Chicken Chop with black pepper, mushroom and Hosie's home-grown rosemary sauce

Buttery Baked Mashed Potatoes (made from scratch)

Pasta in olive oil and garlic and more of Hosie's home-grown rosemary with a whle CHUNK of smoked salmon

Fresh vegetables (not the frozen ones - namely broccoli, cauliflower and carrots)

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I love cooking. The food turned out good. The chicken was a little too salty for my taste. The mashed potatoes were great. And the fresh vegetables tasted like vegetables.

But, I had people adding both pepper and salt to their food. Now I know why chefs don't like people ADDING anything to their food. Makes it look as if the food is not nice enough, so you had to add a whole lump of pepper or salt to it.

Yet again, I know some people love it salty and some love it spicy. So I should not complain and thank God that I can cook.

So... WHO NEEDS A CHEF?

Chef for Hire - email me!

Taking on 2009

There are many things that people want to do in a year. Goals are set. Visions are re-thought. Plans are made.

I was just thinking what to post here and I thought about how it's already one month past into 2009 and I realised that there has not been any plans made for myself this year.

There was a man I met who told me, "Set goals, no matter how small or how big they are, and achieve them one by one within the year."

It makes sense to give yourself a goal. It gives you a sense of satisfaction to be able to look back and see how it all came in place.

So I shall set a few small goals here, print it out and look back by December, how i have fared.

1. To buy a new PDA phone - Samsung Omnia 16Mb or HTC Touch Pro.
2. To get extra income of at least RM500 per month.
3. To go to either Melbourne or London by end of the year.
4. To get old classmates from BPGHS together for 15th year anniversary.

All small items. Nothing too big. I may or may not have many more years to plan things out. So I shall see how I feel about it by end of the year.

Just for those who has not seen me in a long time - I look like this now.



Looks the same, huh?

In Hanoi, Vietnam

There is a difference when you go to someone else's country and you see the sights of the country and how people live here.

we're tourists and regarded as rich - because we can afford to go overseas and see their country.

it is a different place, with time pushed back to about 20 years ago - compared to malaysia.

this place has roads and people and houses that are so backward, yet, here i am, online with connection that is so fast that i don't even need to count to 5 for the page to load fully.

tour's are not exactly the best way of seeing the country, but it does give a certain sight of the place. you only need to open your eyes and ears to listen and see.

i will be posting pictures up soon.

i know i have not been updating this page for a long time...

since the beginning of the year.

So till my next post...

Wishing all of you a Happy Chinese New Year and hope that you will have a good NIU year.

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End of Another Year

In just a short while, we've come to the end of another year.

When you're a teenager, you find a new year exciting. Maybe it's because you are having school holidays and the new year means a new class and new lessons and new everything.

Now, after working for 8 years, you find the new years coming too soon and the usual question of what have i done for the past year that has been meaningful and successful.

We're looking at the years ahead and wondering if 2009 will pass by as fast as 2008 has been.

We're wondering if 2009 will be as good as 2008 and wondering if our problems will be solved by then - or will we carry forward all our problems to 2010.

We're always hoping that a new year will be better.

Will it?

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I have written about all the blessings I received in 2008.

I do not really hope for anything in 2009 - because it is of no use to hope for things that you do not know about.

I leave it to God's hands to pave the way for me in 2009.

I know it will be a good year and no matter what disastrous incidents may happen, I will give thanks to God for all the good AND bad that will and may happen.

Wishing all of you who still read my blog or have chanced upon it:

HAPPY NEW YEAR and MAY GOD BLESS ALL THAT YOU DO!!

Food for Thought

trying to think of something to cook from a cookbook is not as easy as it seems.

What to cook? You've never done it before. Will it turn out the way you want it to be?

We cook what we're familiar with and then the pictures in the cookbook SCREAM out to you - "COOK ME"

What do you do? Go to the supermarket and buy all the ingredients written in the book.

You wonder with the few ingredients mentioned, will it turn out the way the picture shows?

if you don't try, you don't know.

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So what will be the menu for the day?

We cook to escape the mundane food we eat outside. But with the amount of work in cutting and chopping and frying and cleaning, is it ever worth the effort to cook at home?

We eat out, pay the guy some money, eat our fill and go home. Simple. Easy. no fuss.

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I love to cook. Not much chance to cook much nowadays but there is a satisfaction and quiet contentment in cutting, chopping, frying and cleaning.

To have your food turn out delicious and mouth-watering and appreciated and EDIBLE.

It's a lot of satisfaction to see your dish cleared up and eaten and have people say, "THIS IS GOOD!!"

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We're chinese. We're food people. We've got an expansive tastebud.

I think I will cook the kunyit chicken.

Tell you another day how it turns out, if i survive my own cooking...

a little bit of JOY

Let's write about something happy.

I was about to write about how busy I was and how tired I've been, but I thought, let's try to turn this around and write about something good and happy.

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The Joy of the Lord is my Strength.

Joy is repeated often in the Bible. To be happy is to be contented.

To be able to laugh and smile in times of pain and suffering is the ultimate "YOU MUST BE CRAZY".

Our human emotions will follow what our circumstances are. If we're facing all forms of challenges, our faces will automatically show the stress and strain.

It would take a person who either 1. doesn't care (indifferent) or 2. knows how to handle the situation - to be able to laugh and smile while others are complaining and having their blood pressure shooting up.

I look at adverse situations from various angles:

1. God knows what He's doing.

2. I have something to learn out of all these awful happenings.

3. This will not be forever.

4. It's no use worrying about it because I will be blinded by my worries, such that I can't find the solution.

5. The joy of the Lord will strengthen me to go through it.

6. The people around me who are stressed need someone who is calm and level-headed to bring some 'balance' to the whole atmosphere.

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The last one sound really 'new age'. But it's true how in every situation or company or group, you need a balance of characters to bring the best out of the team.

So, I hope this short note will give us something to think about and not WORRY about our current situation.

You're not ALONE in this problem. And it's really NO USE TO WORRY since you don't have a solution yet.

Might as well find the answer instead of wasting time and worrying about what you cannot solve.

With that, I wish you all happy SHOPPING for Christmas Presents and please remember mine!

God Bless...