Sunday, March 29, 2009

Food again

Had to clear up my stocked items or the freshness of it will be gone.

Changed my mind from soup to this one at the very last minute.
Ingredients: Potato, tomato, garlic, onion, carrot, and Shitake mushrooms. Pure vegetarian today.

Ta daa..

Feeding the Barnacles

Overdue posts again.
Barnacles are those marine organisms that you find them permanently encrusted on ships, poles on the sea (for example at fishery places, you can see those poles by the beach are stacked with barnacles), or even on shells of turtles, crabs and snails!

Poles like these

A crab in the exhibition with barnacles on its shell (note the barnacles in the red circle).
The water in the small fish tank is very dirty because everyone has been feeding them non-stop for the past 2 days.

The truth is, the crabs looked like this on the ship prior to being sold to consumers like us. This is what the fishermen see after getting their catch. What they would do is to scrub these 'I-will-never-leave' immigrants before selling to us. The barnacles can also live in the shells!

Surprisingly, some people even eat it and treat it as a delicacy!
One of the preserved barnacles exhibited

At times, it's a nuisance because they often attach themselves to man-made structures, and attaching themselves to the base of the ships can cause the ship to be even heavier- which means more energy need to divert the ships and consequently, higher fuel consumptions.

This is how barnacles feed on.



We fed them with this.
It costs SGD $25.00 per bottle.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

How to dance in the rain

How to dance in the rain...

Another nice one..

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would be able to see him.

I saw him looking at his watch, and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.

On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.

The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife.

I inquired as to her health; he told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease.

As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, 'And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?'

He smiled as he patted my hand and said, 'She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is'.

I had to hold back tears as he left; I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, 'That is the kind of love I want in my life'.

True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

With all the jokes and fun that are in e-mails, sometimes there is one that comes along that has an important message.

I thought I could share with you.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

'Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.'

Italian pregnancy

Saw this while clearing up my heaped emails.. still got lots to go!

An 18 year old Italian girl tells her Mom that she has missed her period for 2 months. Very worried, the mother goes to the drugstore and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that
the girl is pregnant.
Shouting, cursing, crying, the mother says, "who was the pig that did this to you? I want to know!"

The girl picks up the phone and makes a call. Half an hour later, a Ferrari stops in front of their house. A mature and distinguished man with grey hair and impeccably dressed in an Armani
suit
steps out of the Ferrari and enters the house.

He sits in the living room with the father, mother, and the girl and tells them: "Good morning, your daughter has informed me of the problem.

I can't marry her because of my personal family situation but I'll take charge. I will pay all costs and provide for your daughter for the rest of her life.
Additionally, if a girl is born, I will bequeath a Ferrari, 2 retail stores, a townhouse, a beachfront villa, and a $2,000,000 bank account.

If a boy is born, my legacy will be a couple of factories and a $4,000,000 bank account. If twins, they will receive a factory and $2,000,000 each.
However, if there is a miscarriage, what do you suggest I do?"

At this point, the father, who had remained silent all this while, places a hand firmly on the man's shoulder and tells him, "You try again."

Thursday, March 26, 2009

All or nothing



Been singing this song all the way back from school today until now..

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Home-cooked meal

I went shopping just now to get some ingredients and to stock up.

Been lazy to post up pictures of my cooked food..
Previous entries:

And one more- porridge (no pic :P)

But this is the most recent one (today's lunch..and err, dinner)


Ingredients: Shitake mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, carrots, Japanese tofu, minced meat

Might as well post this up also. One of my meals that I had in uni..

Nice?? :D
Doubt that I would get thinner at times.. aiks

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Canon and tripod

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife good-bye and said, "Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon."

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. "Good morning, Ma'am", he said, "I've come to..."

"Oh, no need to explain," Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, "I've been expecting you."

"Have you really?" said the photographer. "Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?"

"Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat".

After a moment she asked, blushing, "Well, where do we start?"

"Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there."

"Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!"

"Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results."

"My, that's a lot!", gasped Mrs. Smith.

"Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be In and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that."

"Don't I know it," said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. "This was done on the top of a bus," he said.

"Oh, my word!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

"And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with."

"She was difficult?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look"

"Four and five deep?" said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

"Yes", the photographer replied. "And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in."

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. "Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh...equipment?"

"It's true, Ma'am, yes.. Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away."

"Tripod?"

"Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long."

Mrs. Smith fainted

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Puffy eyes

I looked like someone whom had cried for weeks (and NON-STOP-type of crying) yesterday morning..
Today was..WORST!!!

Can't believe that I have allergy reaction to my favorite food that I've been eating all my life!!
Food poisoning would be more appropriate..I guess

Was so worried that I couldn't open my eyes to view the test paper.
Luckily I managed to survive that 'ordeal'..
Aii..

Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day..

Better listen to some nice songs and watch few series of dramas..
After all..no more tests at the meantime!
^.^

Been hooked to this old song recently

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Happy White Valentine's Day!!

Again, I'm a little bit late to post this up but the day has not ended yet;)

Happy White Valentine's Day!

This is a special day mainly celebrated in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Today is the day whereby the males will give present to their partners in return of the Valentine's gifts they received exactly a month ago. The presents given to her must be more expensive, and sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (literally, "thrice the return") is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine's gift he received a month ago from her.

As for the singles in South Korea, there's Black Day which is celebrated on 14th April,- yep, one month from now. On this day, the singles will eat Jajangmyeon (white noodle with black soy sauce) as a sign of 'singledom'.

Anyone interested in eating it?

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Of rituals

Went for an interesting talk that I didn't fall asleep!! *oops
=P

It was on a research on HIV clinical trial in South Africa, as the rate of HIV infections is very, very high there. They are studying on the effects of a drug on trial with the prevention of HIV infections. This could possibly help future prevention of HIV, especially among sexually active people. hmmm... ( I know someone who would be very very happy with this..hmm :P)

Alright, the rituals are kind of 'unique' in Bondo, Kenya. It's unique because if a married man dies earlier than his wife, then his wife would have to be 'accepted' (aka given to) by her husband's brother. This is called widow inheritance.

What's changing now is that, most men no longer want to accept their sister-in-laws anymore because they know that they (widow's hubby) died of HIV. But, in order to be accepted by any men, these widows have to be cleansed sexually by some men (outsider) without the use of condom and she has to pay for it.

Okay, the story (of course!) does not end here. If her husband died because of HIV, she must have been infected too- right?
So when they infect the paid man by the 'cleansing' services, the man will get infected and eventually, more and more people will get infected- as there must be widows whom husbands did not die because of HIV.

As some widows were not accepted by any other men, they have to earn a living right? So, what happens is some of them become middle-'women' in buying fish from fishermen and selling those in the market. Humans have their own barter system.
Human exploitations
To get good catch, these women (some HIV-positive) will sell sex services to these fishermen. Many of these fishermen will then go back to their own kampungs, to their beloved families after catching fish for weeks and months. So, their wives will be the next victims.
Sigh..
So the list of HIV infections go on. The ones that I mentioned were one of the key points on how HIV spreads there. Some of the rest of the talk were on this.

So long~~

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Attracted!

It was a really hot afternoon too. We sat outside the lecture hall waiting to go in for the 4pm class yesterday.

While munching my fruits snack, my attention was suddenly captured to ..

To a gorgeous white car!

Placing my bag on the bench, I walked like a zombie towards the parking lot, which was about 100 m away. Well, there was a dustbin there, and I could walk towards the bin to throw my food package and to see what car was that. *spy*

I knew it was a Mitsubishi car but the model..I don't know.
The sunlight was shining so brightly that I couldn't see its model name from where I was sitting initially.

Better grab this chance and see nearer;P

And, ta daaaa..... It's a COLT! Wow!!

And it's expensive too, far more than my dream car.. =.=

Oh well, back to class..

So long~~

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Happy Women's Day!!

Happy Women's Day!!

If you're wondering what am I blabbing on, please read this
Hope I'm not too late to post this: still early by approximately 1 and 1/2 hours..
Though I do agree with what someone had told me on "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" :P

And just saw this..
Cheers!!
Too bad, the 'International Men's day' is still far away..

So long ~~~

Friday, March 6, 2009

Returned from home sweet home

Didn't realised that I've left my baby for so many days dy...tsk tsk

I went back home!!! :D
Brought souvenirs like a santa :D

Met my beloved family and a few people :D
Wasted not being able to see another few more people though..lousy ones..
It's okayla, I don't have much time back at home anyway.
I miss the food!! Urgghh!!

This time, I've returned with a new hope, new life and new motivation.
And a type of new food too, from Cameron (hehe!!)..been eating it with cheese for the past 3 days dy. Fattening ler >.<
But I like it..thanks:D
But I still haven't finished my bread..4 days dy..sob sob
This will stop me from eating bread for some time.

No more procrastination and lagging in studies dy.
Have to focus 101% or otherwise..have to say byebye to school. (I don't know, but it's possible you see).
*exaggerating*

So long~~