Bittersweet.

Ahh.Im so drained right now. Been out the whole day today..spent half of the day at my uncle's place but I had a good time there..not to mention finally meeting my long-distanced cousin,matt after like..years :P And going back to my uncle's place is always one of my fav things to do during cny..I just feel at home there and i just enjoy the company of my cousins,eventho they're all way younger than me hehe.I guess its due to the fact that I used to stay there alot last time..ah.How time really flies.My 11 year old cousin is nearly the same height as me =.=

Ah ok.back to reality.Assignment time..

and tomorrow is my LAST day of holiday?!?
I really feel like crying right now -.-

welcome to the real world

While other people are happily munching cny cookies and collecting angpaos,



here i am on the 2nd day of CNY...




Doing microbiology assignment.



Bliss.

-.-"

Good advice?lol.

Oh yeah. I had some interesting advice from my grand-uncle during reunion dinner earlier:

Granduncle: Eh..you must choose boyfriend nicely ah..dont choose rich boys..not good.must
choose carefully ah.handsome boys no good one..must choose properly ah.very
important you know!Then must bring him see ur parents ah..

Me: *smiles in amusement*

Useful advice for you other girls out there?rofl.oh and he actually had too much of a drink earlier lol.

Double celebration

Dong dong dong chiang!!

Gong hei fatt choi chim pou yan!sek ho ho,wan ho ho,siu ho ho,collect angpao ho ho. ho mohh? (I know you CAN understand this.my cantonese aint THAT bad)



And a very HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY to COLIN!


May this coming year be one of your best and most memorable years!Continue to grow from faith to faith,from strength to strength as He leads you!You've been a wonderful friend and blessing!Rock on dude! Have a great bday :D

Just a thought.

Just a thought.
We always say the inside is what counts more right.

But i guess to (almost)everyone in this world we live in these days,the outside is equally important till the point that sometimes im tempted to feel that the inside doesnt really matter as much anymore.

But thank God for this comfort and assurance :

"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."-1 samuel 16:7

well thank You Lord that you do.and help me to learn to look at the heart even when others dont..

Eating dirt.

Eating Dirt

By JONATHAN M. KATZ

IT WAS lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

No choice: Mud cookies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger.

Charlene, 16 with a one-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium.

But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

“When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day,” Charlene said.

Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 2.8kg he weighed at birth. Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. “When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too,” she said.

Rising costs

Hard work: A woman preparing mud cookies.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertiliser, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well. The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40% in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the UN Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost US$1.50 (RM5). Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs US$5 (RM16.50), the cookie makers say.

Still, at about five cents apiece (about 15sen), the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples.

About 80% of people in Haiti live on less than US$2 (RM6.60) a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Hunger relief: A woman dries mud cookies in the sun on the the roof of Fort Dimanche, once a prison, in Port-au-Prince.

Cookie recipe

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt.

Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets. A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of foetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Hot cakes: A market vendor sells mud cookies at the La Saline market in Port-au-Prince.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

“Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it,” said Dr Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti’s health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

“I’m hoping one day I’ll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these,” she said. “I know it’s not good for me.” – from:the Star Newspaper.

Sigh.the next time i complain about my food,someone please slap me back to reality.(dont have to take it literally okay).but yeah.please do.

randomness

Im currently SO addicted to HSM's 'You are the music in me'..which i din even bother downloading after watching the movie last time-.-

I need a new pair of heels!!hunting for the perfect one is like hunting for gold-.-


I got another extra day of holiday tmr woohoo!well..self-declared one :P


Ive thought of highlighting/perming(slight)/re-straighten-ing my hair after cny.Just got this sudden urge to do something different(or crazy) to my hair lately..hm.waddayathink? ideas anyone? :P