Safra Bay Run photos

Before the run starts. The t-shirt is not very nice hor...
Ee Kuen. Thanks to EK for these photos~~~ Else I wouldn't have any photos!

At the starting line. There were about 70,000 runners in total!

The F1 track was part of the running route. The "wheel" behind is the Singapore Eye.

Piles of paper cups...

The future integrated resort / casino. What's its name? Golden Sands Resort?

Er.. I don't know what building is this leh............. but it's beautiful.

Finishing the race~!!!!!
I think I looked kind of pale. I was in pain.

EK and me~~ finally finished something together ~


Resting after the run.

Our finisher's medal~! It was quite a solid medal.
Glad that EK did this with me~ It was very fun and quite an experience ~ EK and I will do this again! Next time, it'll be the Adidas run~

Finished 10km run~!

I finished the 10km in about 1 hr 45min. So happy and proud that I actually finished the run And finally finished something together with EK (I didn't reach the summit of Mount Kinabalu with EK)

It's slower than my target of 1 hr 30min, it's all because of my "wind" problem (in my stomach). EK could have got a better result but she ran together with me when I slowed down. My stomach always give me problem. It gave me problem when I went Mount Kinabalu as well. Hate it. My stomach was so gassy that it hurt a lot. It hurt so much that I could not really walk up straight. Yeah, "walk", by then I could not run already. It was about 2km to finish line. At one point I even had to sit down for 1 min or 2. I was worried that I might just faint as I was quite in pain.

Luckily I managed to finish the run. It would be such a pity if I had to abort the run at 8km.

We were quite worried that it might rain today. At about 7am we felt a few tiny rain drops actually. Thankfully it didn't actually rain and the weather had been great~ EK took a number of shots, will post here once I got the photos from her.

The run was actually easier than I thought. Though of course... EK and I half walked and half ran. Still, it was an effort. I guess, because it was so tough to even see the first kilometre when we trekked Mount Kinabalu, this run seemed to us a lot easier.

We are going to join the Adidas Sundown run next year~ EK is more ambitious and talking about the 21km run. haha.. but not for me, hehe. 10km is enough for me.

Very happy today~!

Why does faeces smell so bad?

Sudden this came to my mind : why does faeces smell so bad? And I asked God .

So "God" said "The bacteria inside of the feces is what makes them smell so bad. Specifically, the bacteria produce various compounds and gases that lead to the infamous smell of feces. Just in case you were wondering, you can get very sick by eating feces because it contains so many types of bacteria and other harmful substances such as parasites. So we wouldn't suggest adding feces to your diet any time soon. "

And faeces is : mostly made of water (about 75%). The rest is made of dead bacteria that helped us digest our food, living bacteria, protein, undigested food residue (known as fiber), waste material from food, cellular linings, fats, salts, and substances released from the intestines (such as mucus) and the liver. Although feces are made up of about 75% water, this number varies from person to person, depending on how long the feces stay in the intestine. Since the intestines absorb water from the feces, diarrhea (poop that passes quickly through the intestines) will contain more water and retained feces (which stay in the intestines for a longer amount of time) will contain less. Another point worth mentioning is that fiber helps feces pass along the intestine.

There you go.

Oh.. so sleepy.. don't want to type anymore.

Not required?

I emailed Make A Wish Foundation, hoping to do some volunteer job. I don't know what I can help. The instruction in their website for people like me who wish to offer some time to help was for us to email them and apply for it. So I did. I also mentioned that I do some amateur video editing (they mentioned they need help in video editing at times) and hope that I might be of help someday. And I gave them the link to my videos in Youtube.

They replied some time later, saying "We'll take a look."

That's all.

They never sent me any application form for volunteering. They never mention anything else. So that's it.

Guess I'm not required afterall.

Ah well, so be it.

Sigh...

My father's health is getting worse. What are we to do...? Sigh...

Don't get me wrong

I talked about "God" a lot. I "thanked God" for this and that, I said Michael was "God sent", etc etc.

But don't get me wrong. I do not believe in an omnipotent, omnicient being that will answer each and every one's call for help and blessing.

It's just a way of saying things. It just don't sound good if I say :
"Thankfully I finished mending it before he comes back."
So I say :
"Thank God I finished mending it before he comes back."
It's more emphatic if I use "God".

I guess I should go to hell for "using God's name in vain". ha! But no offence to religious friends. This is MERELY MY OWN believe.

I just want to say that. That's all.

Organic organic

Ok, this is going to be a long post. First begin with some random photos at my house.

There came 3 birdies and "stayed" on top of our light tube. What a surprise! I was hoping for them to build nests on our roof or something.. but they came and rest on the tube.
Isn't it a cutie? I took a few shots and I guess my flash disturbed them and they flew away. Bad me...

And this, was one fine morning. I don't usually wake up that early, about 7am. What a beautiful sunrise, right in the city.
Ok now, all about organic.
Don't I look like a nanny... My cousin nancy bought me that short from Bali. And the tube top.. the two didn't go well together. But becos it was HOT HOT day... I want to expose as much skin as possible and get some tan. Hence the tube. If I can wear a bikini I would. But it's not nice to wear that in the neighbourhood..
This photo wasn't taken spontaneously. I "staged" it and asked my bro to take a photo. ahahaha..

What was I doing? Well, we're "harvesting" peanuts. Home grown, all natural organic peanuts. That's my aunt and my mum and my bro.

Fresh from the soil~~~~~
Tada~

We harvested them a little too soon. But it's already edible.Oh by the way, this is how peanut flowers look like.
Now washing the peanuts to free them from soil.
Nice and clean~ and we boiled them in water with salt added. Yummy yummy~

Now, I looked like an idiot posing like that. Know what plant is that?
It's tapioca.
My bro tugging the roots(tapioca).
Tada~~~

The tapiocas were slim... maybe the soil not fertilised enough.
My aunts had them cleaned and cut and boiled. Dab it with sugar and it tasted fabulous~

This is how the stem of the tapioca looks like. The center bit looks edible. But I ain't gonna try it. Raw tapioca is poisonous. I hell ain't gonna try eating its stem...

This is er.. dunno... US cucumber or something. We had local cucumber, Japanese cucumber which is smaller. This is a huge one. Ya, I think my bro said to me this is US cucumber. I think the local cucumber tastes better. Usually it's quite straight, but this is an odd one.
A baby eggplant.

Our papaya "babies" just don't stay... They kept dropped off.

Look at this leave. So funny, grow from the center...

Just a fly. It stopped on a leave near me so I just took a shot anyhow. hahahaha...
I think that's a tiny worm or something.......
Ok, as abrupt as it is, this post ends here.

Mistake before I leave

I still made mistake before I leave my job. ..

I was soooooo busy last week. And I missed out one email. Damn. I was horrified that I missed out that email... my manager didn't scold me. Perhaps he let me off cos I was leaving and felt that he shouldn't scold me in the last few days here . He just told me "Email is very important. The same it goes in other company you go." and he laughed.

I feel so ashame.... I was soooooooooo busy last week... I had to handle the quotations, email replies and deliveries................. I know it's no exucse.... but still, I was really busy! I tried not to miss out anything.. Somehow I still did.. sigh... so frustrating. I'm just so blur at times..

Michael Jackson Conspiracy

Waited for some time for this book to reach me.
It talks about the 2005 child molestation trial of MJ. It made me even sadder for MJ's life. He was really lonely. And... always betrayed by people around him.

This is my review of the book which I wrote in Amazon :

I finished the book with a heavy heart. It just shocked me so much, how blinded the DA prosecutor Tom Sneddon was by his vengeance, possibly racism and prejudice against Michael Jackson. This child molest case, did not make sense at all. It is scary what people in power can do particularly when they have a prejudice against certain people. What about "innocent until proven guilty" huh?

The accusers' deposition changed all the time, and they said they've been molested but on the other hand the accusers' mother kept praising MJ. And the prosecutors went all out trying to put words in the defense witnesses' mouths that they've been molested by MJ. It was completely ridiculous. And it shocked me just as much, if not more, that the press picked and chose what to report about the trial, mostly negatives and also made things look negative when they were not. And the press simply disregard the positive and strong evidences presented completely.

It also shocked me how unsuspecting MJ was towards people around him. Perhaps because the accusers were children, children he helped and loved so much. NObody can understand how MJ felt, being betrayed by people he loved so much over and over again.

I thank the author for telling the truth about the case. But I think it will be a better read if she did not praise MJ that much. I do not disagree of what she praised about MJ. Just as Ms Jones described, MJ in my eyes, was "royalty", was amazing, almost "had an aura" around him. But so many praises would probably make people feel that the book is biased. It almost felt like it was written by an overzealous fan. In my opinion it will put off readers who already have prejudice against MJ. But if one can read it with an open heart, disregard the praises, look at the facts brought about by the defense lawyer (ironically, witnesses from prosecutors strengthened the arguments by the defense), you will see that this trial was a joke. A waste of tax payers' money.

Busiest 3 days in 5 yrs

Wow, it's already 2:30am. Time is really not enough. A blink, hours would be gone.

I had been tired this week, didn't write much. There are photos I wanted to post but just too tired. I broke my record by sleeping at 10:55pm on Wed night. I never sleep so early except when I am sick.

My manager took leave from Wed to Fri. My Japanese colleague has went back to Japan. So I am the only one left to in charge of delivery and replying emails and quotation requests from customers. And I was supposed to teach the new girl Phyllis and hand over my job. I have had no time whatsoever to do that as the delivery and replying emails took most of my time.

This has been the busiest 3 days in the 5+ years I have worked in this company. Hahahaha...

When I was so busy doing the deliveries and replying emails, some people still acts like a pain in the ass. No, correction, he did not "act LIKE" a pain in the ass. He IS a pain in the ass. One of our customers needed something to be corrected. The part has been produced. But the customer wanted it to be modified still, of course we have to comply. Should there be any extra charge, I will let my manager decide when he comes back. Most importanly at the moment was to fulfill what the customer required. It was not a very difficult thing. And the engineers are not at the busiest.

So what was the problem? The engineer involved complaint about this. Basically, he complains about everything, except when he surfs stock exchange websites during office hour. And I said if he's not happy, go and blame the customer. He said sarcastically, "How can I blame the customer? Customer is always correct. I can only blame the person who liaise with the customer."

What the fuck??!

It was the customer who wanted the part to be modified, not us who made a mistake and need to have last minute changes. It was not my fault. Even when it's customer's fault, what we can, we do for them. This is service. If we have no choice but to charge the customer for the extra work then we shall discuss with the customer. It won't do nobody any good by giving such fucking-annoying-counterproductive comment. It won't settle anything. We exchanged a few sentences. And I ended the conversation by saying "If you're not happy, go and tell the customer."

I know he thinks my manager's (sales) work is "very easy". He takes things for granted way too much. My manager had to deal with all kinds of nasty customers while the engineers comfortably sit in the office, doing their thing and (some) still don't admit it when they make mistakes. He really should be sent to do some sales and servicing customers. Then he'll know the real world : Things are not that easy. One cannot just tell the customer "No, the part is done. You cannot change." And business does NOT come easy like he thought : "Just be daring and charge them high high!"

Charity con artist convicted

Another bad news about people getting money from a charity organisation.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_412841.html

"A MAN in his early 20s who set up a network of charities, only to con the public of more than $100,000, was convicted on Tuesday.

The con artist, Rajendren Rajamani, 26, who helped himself to $47,300 of the donations, will be sentenced on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Rajendren pleaded with the judge for a non-excessive sentence that would not have a 'crushing effect'.

In mitigation, he claimed he was so moved by the poverty he had witnessed on a trip to India as a 12-year-old that he was compelled to start a charity.

In 2005, he set up three charities supposedly to help disadvantaged children here.

But it turned out to be an elaborate scheme to get the public, another charity, and even his parents to part with their money."

I say : Sickening.

Harry Potter and the half blood prince

Just watched HP and The Half Blood Prince. Most people who watched it didn't like it. I didn't like the 4th movie. But I quite like this one. I think they did a great job in picking up the very essence from the book. And most importantly, Dumbledore no longer behaved like a gangster.

The love scenes between the 3 main characters were very natural. The sceneries were nice as usual. I like Harry's acting in this episode than the previous movies (except the first).

Those in the cinema was surprised at the end of the movie : "Huh? finished already ah?" I have read the book, so naturally I know this movie ends there. I give the movie... 4 stars. Why not 5 stars? Ehm, I don't know. hahahahaha...