Selamat Berpuasa!

Hey guys, its the fasting month or bulan puasa and I wish all the Muslims a great fasting month ahead.

I'm not Muslim and I've never tried fasting, but I shared an apartment with 2 great Muslim girls and they showed me how to create this great tasting drink to start up your buka puasa.

U need fresh milk, preserved dates and a blender. Just remove the preserved date's seed and skin (u can leave the skin on if u dont mind a lumpier and rougher result) n chuck them into the blender. Add in some fresh milk and blend them til the dates are nice and fine.

Be very generous with the dates, that way the beautiful flavour of the dates is fully embraced by the milk and ta-da, awesome drink. Serve it cold!

As a guideline, I use 4 to 5 big dates for every half a glass of milk.

Enjoy the recipe!

Whats Moral?

You know some things that make you think? Well, today for me it’s morality.

In college I learnt theories of morality. How to decide what is moral and what is not. I learnt utilitarianism. It takes into account how many people’s happiness and how great that happiness of the action brings. Ironically, I learnt egoism after that. It says that all human are selfish and they will put themselves first.

But tell me this, is moral a thing that doesn’t change regardless of situation? Is abortion immoral even if the mother was a victim of rape? If it is so, how are we moral in this dog eat dog world, where there is only the survival of the fittest? Is it true that right will always be right and wrong will always be wrong? When I brought this up, someone said yes, right will always be right, no matter under what circumstance. It was an absurd idea to me. I had always thought that abortion should be made legal for those who were victims of rape and the abortion for the result of that immoral act should be ok, it should be acceptable.

But the longer I let this idea sit in my mind, the more it takes root. When someone commits rape, it is immoral. However, the rapist is immoral, so why would you let his immorality license you to act out another immoral act of aborting the innocent child? When you commit that immoral act of abortion regardless of the situation, you have made an immoral act to someone else, your child.

I know it is easier said than done, and I am not undermining rape victims, but when someone slaps you on a cheek, you turn the other cheek to him too, right? It does not matter if he deserves the forgiveness or not, because by forgiving him you have let down a huge load. By letting down that load, you are able to accept your new responsibility; that is to be a mother or at least carry the baby for nine months and go to the nearest religious home to bless an infertile couple with the joy of having a baby. You do the right thing.

 I guess morality is not about survival in bodily sense, living in a world with pretty macaroons, expensive cigars, a cherry red Ferrari, but it is about preserving your soul. By not maiming it with immoral acts, your body might not survive, but your soul survives. 

Ahora

I met with my lecturer just recently and we talked about writing. She said that the problem with this generation’s writers is that they lack the ability to describe. So I shall make this an attempt to practice my descriptive skills.

I am sitting at the top floor of the house. The fan is not moving due to the momentary electric cut off. My sliding door is open to catch any breeze that might pass by. The flimsy yellow curtain flutters ever so slightly every time a hint of a breeze tries to lift it. The sun is hidden behind a cloud of haze; making the sky look dull and subdued; tricking its audience because in truth, it is far too bright for the eye to perceive. I am sitting with my legs crossed. Sweat has begun to build up at the back of my knees. The lotion I put on this morning is helping the sweat lubricate my thighs and calves, making it almost impossible to maintain this sitting position. My chair creaked at I shifted my weight slightly to the left.

I am sitting too near to the table. My arms are bended at a 90 degree angle forming a diamond shape between me and my laptop. The room is filled with the sound of “tik-tak” as I typed away trying my best to describe the atmosphere. Occasionally punctuated by the sound of silence as I racked my brain trying to think of other ways I could manipulate my words to make them draw a clearer picture.

Stenches have started rising from the heat present in the room. Most dominant being the stench of stale milk. This morning my baby girl threw up milk all over me and with milk and saliva still trickling down her lower lips and chin, she smiles up at me, a beautiful angelic smile made to take away all pain, agony, sleepless nights and frustrations of motherhood. I can’t help but feel my facial muscle contracting to form a smile. I have not yet regretted being a mother so soon. Many said I will. We shall see.

Outside, it has started to rain.

Goals and Motivation

I am now a mother, my priorities has changed. I now know what I want and for who too. The trick is getting there. That I will digress later.

Now, I want to indulge myself with what I want for my future in year 2015.

I want to be with my husband and act like teenagers.

I want to spend time with my baby girl, spend time to be a family and go for cheap picnics.

By 2015, I want to own an apartment.

Ok, this is a picture of an upper class condo. but I though it will be lame if i inserted a boring picture of any old apartment. Plus, there might be a chance i will be living in a condo. Cant a girl dream?

I will decorate it modestly. No need for anything fantastic. Just the basics but looking nice, clean and comfy. =)

Then I want to spend 1 evening every week after dinner with my family, sitting on the couch watching a movie we chose together or maybe a movie our baby girl has chosen.

Ok, we might turn up looking like this. But i once heard from my ex dance instructor that couches ruins our posture.. 

Or I might get us all tatami mats or something like that to sit on and then we can all do stretches while watching tv. Why not?

Plus, I want our lives to be in order. Although not exactly like this. But..........

Definitely not like this. 

 And to make this all into reality instead of just building castles in the air, I need my INCOME!!
And in order to get that, I will need to study hard and finish my course!!
And get a job!!!

Aza aza fighting!
ok, i said that because im so in love with the Korean series "Full House".

I hope that somebody from the writing world will look up this blog and go, "hey, maybe this girl has some potential writing. And you know what? I will offer to be her mentor." or something similar..
hmm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Choices to Happiness

Our lives are what we make of it. It is the kind of choices we make. There will be minor decisions like what to eat for breakfast to big decisions such as whether or not to accept your boyfriend’s marriage proposal. How about some people who claim they did not or refuse to make a choice? Let’s say the situation is thus: Sam is going out for lunch with his parents and his wife. His parents are traditional folks and prefer eating traditionally made Chinese meals. His wife is a modern woman who loves Western meals. Sam is trapped in the middle. He is a filial child who always follows what his parent says; on the other hand, he is a dotting husband, giving his wife everything she can ever wish for. How should he decide what to do? Sam sought out a hotel that offers a buffet spread consisting of traditional Chinese food and also Western food.

Was that refusing to make a choice? No. That was Sam making a choice to accommodate both his parents and his wife. You see, refusing to make a choice is also a choice. No matter what, our lives is the choice we make. I see a man, working as a mechanic, trying to provide 2 meals for his family of 5. He whistles and put a smile on his face when going to work. Then I see another man, driving a car, wearing a suit and tie, in the middle of a traffic jam. He swears and is never courteous on the road, but he owns the car he drives, an apartment and he has a girlfriend. The first man is suffering financially and the second man has almost everything he can ask for. But comparatively, why is the poorer man happier? Because he is easily satisfied? Maybe. Or maybe he chooses to be happy with what he has. No doubt his life must be tough, but who says that having money will make you happy? I asked the poorer man, are you happy? And he says “our (he and his family) lives may be difficult, but we are happy. We may not have what other’s call a normal live because me and my wife go out to work the whole day and my eldest child, 10 years old, have to cook and take care of the younger 2 but we are happy”.

Happiness is and can be a choice. The society tells us we need this we need that to be happy. Because it is their job! If a business man cannot get people to buy his goods, he is a bad business man. If a marketer or an advertiser cannot get you to buy the product they are trying to sell, they are not good at their job! But does this mean that we have to have what these people are telling us to have? These are just tools to help make your live easier. But you can do without it! Happiness is not rated by how easy your life is, it is not rated by how much things you own or can own. Happiness is a simple thing, to just enjoy life as it comes by, regardless of anything that life hurls in your way, regardless of the hurdles you have to cross. Happiness is, ultimately, a choice.

I once received an e-mail. It was about an old man who is going to an old folk’s home. A young cross chap was showing the old man to his room. The chap said: “you better not hope too much from this room” and the old man smiled back and replied: “ah, I like my room”. The chap was puzzled: “you’ve seen the room?” Then the old smiled even wider and said: “every morning, I wake up and I make a decision. And it is to be happy. No matter what happens, I will be happy. It is a choice I make every morning. No one can take this away from me.”

So, what are you waiting for? Be happy today. =)

Why take a Job?

I need a job, everyone needs a job.

Some people need jobs to fulfill their time.

Most people need jobs to fulfill their needs.

We need appreciation.

We need recognition.

We need money.

We need status.

But most often, people are pressured to get a job to fit in. Getting a job means that you are contributing to the family, the company, the nation, the world. Getting a job means that you are not useless. Having and maintaining a job means that you are a responsible, mature adult who plans ahead for rainy days. Someone you can depend on, a person who will be able to provide for the family.

But that is what a job is to someone else. What about what a job is to you?

Is it a means of getting money?

Is it something that you do from 9am -5pm for 5days a week?

Is it somewhere you go so that no one will complain that you are wasting your life away?

Is it something you do for 20years and then one day, sitting where you usually sit in at work, doing what you usually do for work, seeing the usual people you see for work, people you have come to hate but at the same time the people who you have come to want, you suddenly asked yourself this questions, "what am I doing here?".

You don't want to be that person. You don't want to ask yourself what have you been doing this past 20years. You don't want to be asking yourself "what about my dream when I was in college/school?".

So do not take a job because someone pressured you to take a job.

Take a job because you want to!

Take a job because it is something you will wake up and look forward to.

Take a job even though it gives you headaches, it gives you chills, it gives you cramp legs and carpal tunnel, simply because you love it. That it makes you feel good after a hard day's work.

It makes you feel like you are changing someone's life or the earth. It gives you a purpose.

Don't let your job be "Just Obey Boss". Let it be a purpose. Let it make you happy too.

Venting

I just want to vent today.

So if u hate people who vent, please stop reading.

Because this is going to be looooooooooooong.

Vent about my babysitter.

I think she is trying to turn my baby into a night owl.

I dont understand what she is saying when i ask her how much milk baby is drinking.

Vent about my mother.

She thinks that i should let the babysitter do whatever she wants to keep her happy.

She thinks that i should not say anything or ask anything about what my baby is doing in her house for fear of upsetting her. She thinks that if i make the babysitter unhappy, the babysitter will take it out on my baby.

She thinks that it's ok for me to be stuck in this damn house when she complains about how she cannot stay in this house.

I think that she is tactless.

But she just thinks that im irresponsible, lazy, useless. And the only thing I can be proud of is that i managed to BF my baby.

Which is nothing, because she didnt BF me and im still living today w/o any major health issues.

Also, when there is any problem regarding my baby, ei. sleeping patterns is disturbed, her first suggestion is to stop BF.

She is not supportive of my BF, but will try to get people who knows how to BF to help me out, but will encourage me to try out formula.

End of venting.

Breastfeeding Prob 1 - inverted nipple

*read in sifu way*

Since i can now claim that i can breastfeed my baby well and efficiently, i will pass on some wisdom and knowledge to u.

When i started off breastfeeding, i had ALOT of problems!

Pregnant mothers who are thinking of breastfeeding yr babies, do not be fooled by the books!

It is NOT easy and it does NOT come naturally!

At least not to me. A child who grew up in a family who had never had anyone who breastfed their babies.

I had, what the nurses called, inverted nipple where my nipple sinks into my breast. And to overcome this, i had to hold my nipples in a "scissors hold". This is where I use my index finger and my middle finger to form a "peace sign" or as if im holding an imaginary cigarette. They asked me to pull my nipples by holding my nipple in between those 2fingers and then offer it to the baby.

Well, I tried it repeatedly yet my baby still could not feed from my breast. And then the nurses gave up and said "well, if u did plan on breastfeeding your baby, u should had made sure that u didnt have inverted nipples".

What a load of tosh!

I read what i could on books and online about breastfeeding. And they always say the same thing, "breastfeeding is easy and natural, just make sure u have skin-to-skin contact immediately after your delivery". I even went for some breastfeeding classes prior to my delivery, but the lactation consultant only said "u dont have to worry, just have an open mind and it will come naturally".

So i was discharged on the third day after delivery, still unable to breastfeed my baby. After a few days, i visited the lactating consultant and got an advice, "use a nipple shield". Because your baby will be able to latch on efficiently on the shield and suck the milk from it, in the meantime, your baby will also be sucking out your nipples so that in the future, u will be able to breastfeed without the shield.

Viola! It worked, my baby latched on well and she is getting mummy's milk! But this only went well for about 2-3weeks. After that, I met with another problem.

Stay tuned for "Breastfeeding Prob 2 - nipple confusion"

;)

The problem with Chinese school

I was fetching my baby girl home from the babysitter’s when I saw a yellow bus. For those who do not know what it means, yellow busses usually represents school busses. That image spurred my memory back to the good old days of my primary school.

There are two prominent memories from then. And one was how unimaginative teachers can be. As an art assignment, the class was asked to draw our own house. Mind you, not our dream house, but our own house. Therefore I set out to mull over the humble house I grew up in. I decided to draw the outside because I thought that the inside would just be too much to draw. I had to draw chairs, tables, the television set, ah, definitely too much work.

Needless to say, I met with many problems while doing this. My first problem was drawing the stone slabs that are in my garden. It formed a tick-tack-like layout and the grass ran in between the stone slabs. So I decided some squares and some green coloured spikes that reaches different heights will clearly depict how my garden looked because no one bothered to cut the grass except for Chinese New Year. I had to be honest about this drawing right?

When I was done doing that, I looked at my drawing paper. Hmm, something didn’t look right. The stone slabs in my house had small holes in it. So I decided that these stone slabs had to have small holes in them too. I added them in. And the garden was done.

Next I started on the house itself. My house had a majestic looking sliding door that reaches up to somewhere that I, at 8 years old could not reach and had a black grill protecting us from robbers who might come at night to steal my pink rabbit. And beside it, there is a brown and white striped awning shading our big van from the sun. Also, we had a gate with black swirly patterns.

As the sliding door is transparent, I decided to draw three panels and filled them up with thick black lines that are supposed to be the grill. Then I drew a bigger rectangle to frame these hard work to make sure that my teacher knows that there is a sliding door and then a grill. Then I drew the awning that definitely looked cacat. And I drew the butt of our van. And tada!! My house. Before taking a last looks at it, I handed it up because time was up anyway.

On the next class, I was called up to the teacher’s desk. I went meekly and when I reached her table, she turned her face to mine and on it was a ferocious look. She pointed forcefully at my drawing and asked me what it was. I could not answer because all I was thinking was “I know my drawing is nothing much to look at but if she is going to poke any harder than that, she is going to form a hole in my drawing!” and I was not happy. Then she continued to jibber on about how that can not be my house and that no one’s house looks like that and repeatedly asked me does my house look like that, but never once waiting for me to answer. And after that embarrassing episode, I was made to stand on my chair for the rest of the class for disobedience.

From then on, I decided that I hate that teacher and that maybe some people prefer to believe in a lie than to accept the truth and that Chinese school teachers and just that way, unimaginative. However I do not detest my school. In fact I am considering sending my baby girl to a Chinese school when the time comes. But has these chinese teacher’s mindset changed at all?