Introducing Fair Trade....

I got a box of Fair Trade tea for Christmas, when my office were distributing the stuffs in the Christmas hampers.

Fair Trade is cool. Do you know what is Fair Trade? Nah. Its not the NTUC Fair Price. Its this scheme where the profits gained from the buyers go directly to the marginalized farmers themselves, minus the giant retailers.

Fairtrade comes in the form of bananas, coffee and tea. Not sure if there are more, probably...
In the globalized world today, I think most of us have learnt that the rich becomes richer and the poor, poorer. This is due to MNCs and TNCs taking over the place of small businesses and economies, and while hiring people from the third-world countries to do the mass production, the giant companies pay them lowly and shortchange their earnings. So, its the same for the poor coffee farmers in the third-world countries.

With fair-trade, the farmers get direct profits. Sadly, not many people in Singapore know about this movement. It chips in with social responsiblity. I do know that Starbucks and Marks and Spencers sell Fair-trade coffee and teas. So, I can feel less guilty when I drink Starbucks. Cos I know that even though its expensive, the money goes to a good cause.... And above all... you are paying for organic coffee... healthy.

Can you imagine, buying a cup of coffee is not just buying a cup of coffee. You buy into social responsiblity, you buy into goodwill and peace on earth, and you buy into a better global environment. So much for a cup of kopi or teh. Hmmm... maybe too much. But doesn't that cup taste better with its humane flavour?

So, the resolution for the year 2008 will be to drink only Fairtrade coffee and tea!!(I will probably break that resolution...)

Pictures from the last days of 2007....

Finally managed to get my butt down to download pictures from my camera.. random pictures of gatherings, holidays etc...

Pictures of me and Ariel in Phuket 10-13 dec

Our Last day in the hotel at Phuket... Nice and cheap hotel... will never forget the nice decor and coziness...

Woke up one morning and I thought that the colours of the sky were beautiful....

Children dressing up as animals in the church performance. This rooster attire is the cutest I ever saw. Can I take her home?

Sweet little fairies/ angels. So sweet...

Christmas-tree cupcake I baked on Hari Raya haji, one week before Christmas.
Christmas celebration dinner at Sakae Teppanyaki

The 4 guys.... The guys, making roses out of ferrero rocher wrappers... ugghh....

Presenting the guys... again.... Finally.... The ladies... on Christmas night....

What do I have to say above all for this year.....

Situations don't change. But you can. Change for good, not for worse.

Amy has somewhat mellowed. Circumstances made her quieten down.

My friends, thank you for being my friends. Every encounter I have with each friend makes a difference in my life.

I thank God that with His help I always pulled through my circumstances. I cannot imagine living a life without the joy and hope of the Lord. The hope and love that I experienced... is beyond description..

My resolution for next year... is to grow in wisdom and knowlegde, and to know where shall I go forth next....

This is really funny.... thanks Jerlin for the forward on email....

I'm back from a good break in Phuket! Waiting for the photos to come before I blog about it.

Feeling refreshed and recharged after the trip, I can go on the crazy life till next year, then I will need a break again. Ha.

Christmas is next week! Woohoo! I got many exchange presents, including a sash and bath accessories, with a rubber ducky and a scrubby scrub. Scrub all my 'kao kuek' (body dirt) away!!! My cousin gave me a WHOLE load of makeup!!!!

• bio-essence anti dark eye ring gel
• ZA compact powder with very nice casing (can stick jewels on the casing)
• Clarins Lip gloss
• Dior pink lipstick
• Shiseido eyeshadow
• Some eyeliner
• Stella McCartney perfume

Let me die in happiness can? Last time I didn't really apppreciate the beauty products given to me, but now, to even purchase one of the above is like.... ahhhh!!!!

I splurged over $70 on chocolates to give others for christmas presents... Oh how happy those departmental stores are...

Okay enough about my presents, its great to have a season where everyone can come to give gifts and gather together to eat and be merry....

Isn't Christmas lovely? I thank God for Christmas and the joyful atmosphere we experience every end of the year. :)

Need to go wrap stuff now....

How do I describe my working experience:

Walking to work feels like a stroll in the park; with undulating slopes and greenery, holiday-like lodges built sparsely around the vicinity. The cool morning air, with sights of joggers and retirees strolling around the medical-park contrasts sharply with the adrenaline pumping rush hour in the business districts. Going to work is a quiet affair.

As I walk along the corridors, wafts of cheap tobacco smells linger around usual corners as the older folks hide in unseen corners to take a smoke. Time to time, scruffy looking men take their routined stroll along the corridors, wandering aimlessly without a sense of time. Maintaining my straight face, walking with my head held high, I walk past them ensuring a safety radius around me as I pass them.

As I walk further into the blocks of lodges, I noticed huge rain trees that tower grandly alongside the buildings. The branches and leaves swaying lightly to the breeze hypnotizes the environment, drawing it into a state of serenity. Given that fact, however, the peace of the daytime would occasionally be pierced by screams and loud groans coming forth from the lodges. No one bats an eyelid

I began to contemplate my adaptation to this rustic, strange environment. Struggling with stacks of record files in my arms, with the echo of my heels clucking down the corridor, I walk pass people who, on the contrary, are detached from reality; some walking aimlessly, some sitting around like monuments. Time seems to pass at a different pace in society's hidden community.

It doesn't feel like I have worked. To be detached from the mass of office workers, to be detached from the posh and hype of the cosmopolitan city feels unrealistic. For now, I dwell in the unknown but existing realm of an unfamiliar community.

I have not blogged about stimulating topics for a long time. My brain, after coming out of NUS, is getting dull. But of course. I don't engage in so much intellectual reading and thinking as before. I only think about lunch, dinner, breakfast, what to do for the day, and bimbotic fashion tips.

There was a period of time where I decided to switch the focus of my blogging to mundane things I do daily, weekly. I was afraid that the thought-stimulating pieces that I pen down might seem somewhat shallow. But I was reading through my archive yesterday and I realized it wasn't too bad. Or maybe my brain is getting more dull. Anything thrills my sloth-like mind. Whatever. Yea.. like…. Wha-ever…(aww my nails… they are gedd'in chipped from typin…)

Haven been getting updated about the news lately. But one issue caught my mind. The Hindu-Indian riots in Malaysia. Man… I never expected history to repeat itself, especially in this increasingly cross-cultural, globalized era. What does it show? It shows that history is not passé. History cannot be forgotten. History is important. So to those who wave off the humanity subjects like history, you obviously don't live in a world with humans and social networks. Yea. Haha.

The grievances of the Indians in Malaysia stem all the way back to the colonial era, where they were marginalized. That's like close to a hundred over years. Not in their lifetime. But the marginalization continues till today, so they claimed. It may be due to stereotyping and categorizing of the Indians since the colonial days till today, by the rest of the state. It may be due to their lack of motivation to move ahead. I don't know. Many people have different view points to this.

But I think grudges can be carried over for generations. Not just for these people, as well as many other places, India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine… etc. That's why history in politics is very important.

Many of our administrative procedures (like the categorization of race in our ICs) and our legal policies are shaped largely by the British administration during the colonial period.

The way politics and democracy was created in South-East Asia after WWII was very much shaped by cold-war politics, and making hasty allies with the western democratic countries. Some say that is why many SEA countries have pseudo-democracy.

Okay. In conclusion, history is relevant to our issues today. Human nature never gets better. And, violence begets violence. Many more implications to come.

Change skin!!! Yay!!

I loove this new skin!!! So colourful and bright! Just looking at it cheers me up.

I have not been in joyously good spirited for the past few weeks, not too sure why, but since I have been reading up a little on psychological stuff, I might contribute it to the ups and downs of my youthful but raging hormones.

Surges and falls of oestrogen and other sorts of hormones probably caused my brains to go in a mess. Plus the fluctuating glucose levels I have when I consume food could have made it worse.

Or maybe I'm just in the "whiny" mood. I want attention, I want some care and concern from others. A nice genuine "how have you been doing?" or a "How has your life been?" or even a "lets have some tea and cake" will sound good. :)

Arghh. Stressed. Arrgh.... Troubled. Arrgh... the forlorn world....

I think somethings' a little inapt within me these days. I give emotions to non-living things, like vehicles.

The other morning, I heard the agitated roar of the taxi picking up its engine, and thought that taxis are haughty and conceited on the roads, never giving way and always impeding on the other vehicles.

I saw the bus made a right turn and stopped at a 45 degree angle facing towards me to wait for the green traffic light. I thought it was such a sleek and sexy pose that the bus did, long and slender, twisting its body, but its faced at a tilted angle looking away. I laughed at myself after that for having such affectionate thoughts for buses and taxis...

Something is wrong with meee.....

Anyway... I still am able to get a kick outta life, thankfully. Interesting stuff I have below...

I took this picture wif my camera fone cos I was intrigued by the huge, huge fluffy clouds behind my estate. Of course, I modified the picture with photoshop... :) :)

Check out the cool orange backdrop... its at Coffeeclub at Millenia Walk, only this side of the wall was a funky orange, I thought it would be a nice shot.

I want to be a Homemaker!!!!

I took a day off work today to settle some personal stuff, like going to the bank, finishing up my paper etc...

After completing my stuff at the bank I walked around Toa Payoh's NTUC snooping around for interesting food I can cook. Man... its such a joy doing groccery shopping.I decided that I will buy stuff home for lunch and dinner. So cool... I walked around the food section for many rounds, checking out the interesting purple US potato, the deep purple brinjal, the various pastes for stir-frying etc.... I chose and dangled some tiger prawns to check that the head was not dropping (indicates not fresh) and put it in the plastic bag... Grabbed a stash of spring onions....

I don't know for you, but choosing food to cook for people is very therapeutic. I find that I'm in control. Carrying a few plastic bags with NTUC labels and having vegetables sticking out of the bags seem like a noble thing to me. For one, I either look like a maid, or a cool young homemaker. Love it :) :) :)

Menu for today:
Lunch I made Mee Hoon Kuay. It was the best mee hoon kuay I ever made. (Actually its the first time I made it). I made the noodles by myself out of dough and cooked it in the soup.
As for the soup, I boiled chicken bone and threw in fried prawn shell and fried garlic, and squirted some fish sauce in. The soup was potent....
After that, top with fried ikan bilis and fried onion slices.... Whoo whoo....

Tea time I baked banna cake. Not fantastic, not enough butter and bananas. Oh well, but gave half of it fresh-out-of-the-oven to my neighbour. =)

Then I drove the car out to buy doughnuts for friends I'm visiting in NUS. 12 in a box. At Novena. And sent the doughnuts to the muggers at NUS.

After settling my stuff at NUS and church, I came home to savor my dinner. Dinner was stir-fried brinjal in sambal, black pepper diced chicken, spinach, and soft fish steamed with egg. I bought the brinjal, black pepper paste and chicken earlier at NTUC... so proud of it....

I love cooking. If given the time and energy, I would cook for guests a full meal, with snacks and desserts included. I love cooking and entertaining people at home.

Maybe if I marry a rich guy, and I don't have to work, then I can spend the REST OF MY LIFE entertaing guests and cooking for them... like those nonya tai-tais.... *gushes*

Sadly, I don't know of any rich guy. Anyone has recommendations? Muahahahhaha.......

IMH Dinner and Dance

The girls of Research went all out to dress for this event. A night of flowers, tube dresses, make up, and more make up (Fake eyelashes for me!!!!!) . We started curling our hair with the hair curler set in the office during lunch time. We sprayed tattoo on our backs and arms the night before. All set!

I drove my car to work that day and parked at my colleague's house to dress up. After that, while driving on the way to the dinner event I noticed an irritating piece of paper clasped underneath my windscreen wiper. I clicked on the switch of the windscreen wiper a couple of times to "wipe" the paper off my windscreen. Then my colleague commented:

"Did you put parking coupon when you parked at my place?"

"Er... no?"

"Then that must be a summon ticket."

.

.

.

My heart dropped. Summon ticket. SUMMON. After that I was frantically staring at that piece of paper hoping it wouldn't fly away from under the windscreen wiper, when before that I was trying my best to get rid of it.

Stupid Amy.

Thankfully, only $30 fine.

Okay here are the pictures....

Candid Shot...

The "All Girls Department" Research Unit!!!

My colleague cum mentor Jenny.. check out that towel-like-thing on my shoulder!!!

Pretty Sharzanna getting a body paint. She is like so gorgeous, Thai-Malay heritage and has eyes like Utt.... @_@

Check out my "tattoo" which was sprayed on... Dang how I wished it was real...

Rejoicing is not always by feeling, but more often by Choice

This is something I have come to realise over the past few months, years. That rejoicing and being positive does not always mean that my surroundings have changed for the better.

Its more that I had my outlook and perspectives changed.

Choosing to rejoice in all circumstances may not be an easy thing to do. Sometimes its rather trying. Sometimes I felt stupid trying to see the best side in things when things really seem... nothing to rejoice for....

But I realised rejoicing is about placing trust and hope in the future; I rejoice because I choose to believe that all will be good in God's hands. It is a scary thing to do because by doing this, you let go of how you can attempt to control the situation and choose to allow something intangible like faith to take the lead.


I recently watched a powerful testimony, well if this guy can be such an inspiration despite his great, great limitations, he is really a living proof that God in which by faith I place my trust in exists. How can one with such disablilties continue to motivate himself and others if he places his trust in something that does not hold?




After this I began to realise that I many attributes in which I consider are gifts unto me, which I choose to refute and question. Sometimes I kick myself wondering why despite all that I have achieved, there are times I feel worthless to the guts.

So, choosing to rejoice is like seeing a half filled cup as half full and not half empty. Its telling myself I'm a step closer to reaching rather than "there is so much more to go".

Rejoice.

The Venus of Palawan...

Long ago, in ancient Sentosa, there lived a mythical creature residing at the beach of Palawan. She was said to be a va-va voom goddess, and men fell head over heels at her very sight. Mythical as she was, mystery shrouded her. She was thought to be a mermaid, and had long, flowing hair down her waist. Her melacholic aura and jaded personality made her even more attractive, and all men desired to breakthrough to her heart.

A few hundred years later, the myth was long forgotten, until one photographer chanced upon her and snapped some pictures of the gorgeous mythical goddess secretly... now the secret is out... the Venus of Palwan actually exists.... check out the pictures below...





Hahaha.... that was Clara the mermaid.... Went Sentosa today and played by the beach. We made a sandcastle after that which resembled a little of the Naruto sand kingdom.... quite nice I mst say... :)

Proudly presenting to you....

After a few hours' of hard work, I finally managed to complete another project for my mom's birthday: Dragon cake. Since she is born in the year of the dragon. Its carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and marshmallow fondant for the dragon. As for the flowers, they are gumpaste flowers, I bought them.

I must give credit to the cake blog for the inspiration of their dragon cake. So I took their idea and made my own dragon. It my best cake production so far, cake didn't crack, cream cheese was excellent, cake looks and tastes edible... :)

The "insides" of the cake. Mmmmmm

The World is Made up of Boundaries....

What makes a person sane, or insane?

Is a sane person sane all the time? Is an insane person insane all the time?

Yet society chooses to think so, such that the labelling of the sane and the insane determines the outcome in people's lives.

Amidst all the glamour and posh we choose to filter our lives into, each of us know very well, that we have deliberately concealed the hidden darkness in us.

Only when the darkness starts to overload and spill out, tainting the glamour and the posh, only then we realise how vulnerable and broken humans are....

~~~Just a thought....~~~

Its been sometime since I blogged properly.

Work has been... interesting and an eye opener. My neighbour who can only speak Teo Chew bumped into me in the lift. She asked me where I was working. So... er how do you say IMH or Woodbridge Hospital in TeoChew.

The only thing I could say was: "Er... Siao Keng." Its a slang for crazy place.

My colleagues are really sweet and helpful. But so far working pace is snail slow. Maybe will be more bus in time to come. Sighz. And I can't log into MSN at work. And the internet is perpetually not working. -_-'''

Let me introdue to you my fren Amina: Just made frens with her last night... quite a sweet gal... she is going for a Hari Raya celebration tmr. :)

Nah kidding.... That's me. In a malay costume borrowed from my "international fren' who stays with me (aka domestic helper) cos I'm going for a Hari Raya lunch tommorow. Not with the tudung of cos. But since I got the whole set at home, I may as well costume play with it. Ha.

You guys are so going to laugh at me.

As the sun rises and the sun sets, daily I will meditate on You...

Nearly forgot I had a blog

Okay I'm exaggerating... but yea with the lack of time and so many distractions like face book, msn etc to occupy my limited free time online, I put blogging at the back of my head.

Amy is contented now... cos she is in control. Hohohohhoh.....

Control over
1) spending power
2) Most decisions over what to do with her free time
3) her perspectives
4) her state of mind


Economic power can be translated into many forms of other power, and control....
HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO........


HAHAHHAAH

HEHEHEHEHHEHEE

HURHURHURHUR

...........................................................................................

Of course economic power is not the main reason, just part of it.... * grinz*

Crown me the Cam Whore Queen...

I made use of my Sentosa trip to fine-tune my camera whoring skills...

A Camera-Whore moment...

In case you don't know, this is a Luge ride, basically you glide down a curvy slope with this thing we sit on... real fun


After the Luge ride we found a spot where the lighting was fantastic, so we took many many pictures and played with the timer, so there were many impromtu and spastic shots in the following....

This picture is da best, da best, as requested, credits go to Ken Jia THE photographer.

ShiPing did a collage for us...