how sad...

Can you imagine this happening? What are people thinking these days? No wonder parents refuse to subscribe to newspapers anymore. Do they ever think about what would happen if there was a fire incident around the area? Is whatever they earn from these arms worth the act of stealing?

Changing topics, remember how Guang Ming daily, Sarawak Tribune and most recently, Berita Petang Sarawak was suspended because they published the Prophet Muhammad caricature? I had wondered why was it such a necessity to suspend their license and have people lose their job, some whom depended on their job to provide for their family and yet they are not directly involve with publishing the caricature. Why can't situation be resolve using the 'civilized' way?

Today, SpartanEdge, an online campus news decided to publish the caricature. But instead of dumping it on their main site, they gave you the choice to click on a link to it. If you feel that you'll get offended by it, then don't click it. If not, the reason for publishing the caricature is to "broaden the community's discussion of the issue" (quote from The State News). At the same time, they also organized a discussion session later in the day for those who are interested to understand why some people get offended and why it is so important for them to make themselves heard.

Pray that everyone will always remember that life is a better place when we think about others before ourselves.

how time flies

I was about to go off to bed last night when I saw my cousin, ML, came online on MSN. I remembered she had her first presentation recently and decided to ask her how it went. Instead, her dad answered saying that she had already gone diving and won't be back till Sunday. So I chat a little with her dad and the next thing I know, her lil brother, TA, came on. Then he asks me how come both he and his sis MSN can be online at the same time on the same PC. My first reaction - did I read it right or did he mistype something? He's 13!!! He's my lil cute cousin! He has an MSN account??? I asked him to make sure we're on the same page and guess what..he added me!! He even has a photo uploaded for his display picture and a little personal message below his nick! I just can't imagine that!! When I was 13, I just started learning how to use e-mail and barely know how to connect to mIRC what more using all these fancy messengers. Gosh..the kids these days are definitely catching up with the technology.

Later, when I was lying on the bed, I actually felt kinda sad. Everytime I think about TA, I think about cute lil boy that I can carry around, curly hair that I mess around, the one cousin who can't wait to be taller than me (I'm the shortest among all cousins) and the one who still plays Hot Wheels cars. But he's grown up a whole lot since then. Before I left for the States, he told me that the next time I go home, he'll be taller than me. Ever since then, everytime I go home, the difference between his height and me seems to increase and he loves teasing me about it..arghghgh!!! Now, he's the one who does the teasing to drive me nuts instead of me teasing him about how he keeps changing his ambitions since he was a kid. Of course, I can also no longer carry him around and ruffling his hair is gonna be rewarded with a glare from him.

In fact, this is the one thing I miss most being so far away from home - being part of the family. Of course I'm still part of the family but when we're not literally there, we just miss the little details. In this case, I totally miss the growing up of TA and even my own lil brother. We never really did got along well with each other when I was back home but we have our moments too. Internal jokes that no one else would get and of course, he has kept some of secrets for me too. Now he's all independent and living his own life. I do get updates from my parents about what everyone is up to or what they've done recently but the feeling is completely different when being there myself. Sometimes it makes me feel left out whenever I'm back but hey, that's life right? We can't have everything at the same time. At least I know I'm still thought of enough that they'll ask me mum every once in a while when I'm going home or how am I doing here. And most of all, I'm greatful that whenever I'm home, they treat me just the way they used to, they remember my favorite food and places to go and they take the time to spend it with me.

But I know I'll always miss the times I'm apart from them because they are the best family I've ever had. I know lots of people are not very close to their relatives and only meet once a year. I'm thankful to be part of a family who is very close and whenever there's a gathering, it's always a happy event. Even when we don't see each other often, it's easy to get along.

a package!

This weekend have been quite an eventful weekend. It started on Friday night when I came home and saw a note from the USPS saying that they left me a package in the apartment management office. I knew it has to be from tiptup! Mum passed some cds to dk while he was back at Penang for a visit, so that I can collect it from them when I go to Boston this summer but tiptup said she's sending cookies too!!

Woke up early on Saturday morning and get all the regular household chores done. Went to the office at 10am when they opened, to get the package. Here's what I got..

My favorite is the pineapple tart!! I used to help my aunt to make them all day long but they will be gone the next day and the next thing you know, Ping is down with sore throat for eating too much pineapple tarts. The one thing that didn't survive the shipping was the 'kuih kapit'. It got crushed somehow. The white one of the left of the dodol is quite tasty too but I still like the pineapple tart! Did I say that edi?? :P As for the dodol, believe it or not, but I haven't tried the one that has peanuts in them (the brown one with white spots). But then again, Penang is not very well-known for their dodol so I haven't eaten much dodol before. Maybe dk bought the dodol from Malacca, which is his hometown...which reminds me I should make a trip there the next time I go back since I haven't been to Malacca since..hmmm...7 years I think??? Oh wow! My family used to make day trips there on weekends when mum and dad didn't have to work overtime on Saturday afternoon. I love shopping at the market near A'Famosa..I think??? It's at this huge field and tons of stalls selling clothes, games (ie. congkak!!), and of course, delicious food!!!

Next is the cds!!! Haven't watch either one of them yet but I finally get hold of a copy!! It made its way to San Francisco International Film Festival so I assume it must be really good. Mum said Puteri Gunung Ledang is not very good but I refuse to listen to the spoilers. Wonder if they have English subtitle since my BM is going down the drain. Listened to the igemz's Cradled in Buddha's Arms last night and I love it!!! Then I also got an angpau from tiptup and dk!!

After all the excitement of getting a package, Jarrod called me close to lunch time saying that he'll be in town! That was definitely an unexpected event as I haven't seen him or Amanda for 2 years or so..basically since I left WMU. It's always a great feeling to know that someone remembered me even if it's been such a long time since we last met or even keep in touch. Both he and Amanda are still in Kalamazoo and they were just passing by Lansing so decided to call me up. How nice of them to stop by..We went to Starbucks for a drink and I had a great time catching up with them.

Went back to lab to finish up some stuff and met Steph and Jen. Steph wanted to purify green fluorescent protein for her class and I always love watching the purification step so I stayed back. It's really cool to see the fluorescent band move down the column as we change the concentration of the ammonium sulfate.

By the time I got home, it was almost midnight but another surprise! Got a letter from Li Foong with a really nice postcard that says...

Kalyana Mitra, please take care of me
We somehow share the same destiny
Kalyana Mitra, I'll take care of you
Beautiful friend, I truly love you.

Isn't it sweet? Thanks a bunch girl! I love the card and it's great to hear from you!

Now that the weekend is almost over, gotta gather my strength and motivation for this upcoming week which is gonna be a challenging one with a presentation lined up on Thursday. But I'll do my best!

Buddhist Hymns

I was looking up the net to see if there are anything interesting happening at the Buddhist temple around here or a Buddhist camp during Spring break. While I couldn't find anything except for the regular Puja, I stumbled upon this site where the Buddhist hymns are available in mp3 format and downloading is free!!! I kinda feel guilty for snagging all the songs for free but I can't help it! I miss listening to all these songs as I haven't listened to them since my BISDS (Buddhist Institute of Sunday Dhamma School) days!! I do have these songs back home but they are in the form of cassette tapes so there's no point in bringing it here since I don't have a player. I'm just so happy to listen to these songs again!!! It kinda make me miss playing the guitar too. That's another thing I've been meaning to get but couldn't bring myself to spend the money for it, especially when I don't really have the time to play. It's only sometimes when I feel like getting away from reality, playing the guitar helps make me forget about everything and just enjoy the music.

Thinking back to BISDS, it's been 8 years since I left BISDS and every Sunday when I'm back at home, I'll go to Puja and wish that I am still part of BISDS. Thankfully, I still keep in touch with LF and SH to get updates. In fact, it was LF who brought to my attention that INCOVAR had just release the first album (actually, not so recent anymore as I think it was sometime last year). The moment I got her e-mail about it, I called my mum to get it for me but they didn't have it in Penang at that time. But when I called home last week, she said that she already got it and it's on the way here via my cousin. Can't wait to listen to it!!

~Sabbe satta sukhi hotu~

love...

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's the day when we're all reminded of how important it is to be with our love ones..but how bad the situation must be for us to only remember this on Valentine's day??? Why can't everyday be a valentine's day?

It's another year of being single for me and just like last year, it's just another day. On the other hand, people are rushing around getting presents and booking tables for dinner. Is that what a relationship has come to be? All about presents and dinners once a year? One of the best Valentine's day memory for me was in 2000. He picked me up from work, which was really sweet, drove me back home and surprised me with a blackforest chocolate cake...one of my favorite! We just stayed home, eat cake, talk and spend the night together. All throughout the years we were together, Valentine had never been a big celebration because we were always apart. There were a few years when Valentine's day was close to CNY and I usually go back to Penang for a long holiday. Later when we started college, one Valentine he was in Australia and then he left for the States. When we were here, I always had to work. We never did exchange much presents for Valentine's day except for one year...he left me a card with blueberry candle and a bag of socks (which I refused to buy and was wearing socks with holes in them) while I was asleep. Then while he was working, I bought a bunch of chocolate candies with lots of KitKats (which was his favorite), mixed them up in a box and placed it on his computer desk. They were nothing expensive or romantic but were all sweet and meaningful.

But I think the idea behind Valentine's day is to remind us that we need to stop and look at the people around us and treasure how important they are to us. That it's important to spend the weekend with them, to remind them how much we need their support and love and simply, to love them even more. So, Happy Valentine's Day to all of you and thanks for all the comments and support..and most importantly, for even bother to read anything I post!!!

As for today, it's gonna be a chaos during my lab session this afternoon as I'm sure I'll have students who will bug me about how early we can get out of lab...especially those with plans tonight...kids!!

scrapbooking

It's time to get more supplies for my scrapbooking project. Just finished the one on my vacations and I want to do another for family occasions. Since I wasn't in the mood to sit and read articles that I have been trying to read for the past hour in the morning (it was a very boring, computational analysis paper and I know nuts about C++ and what codes are right and what are wrong), I decided to take a drive to "Photos to Scrapbooks" at Okemos.

Looking around for a new photo album, I wanted one that has a plain cover so that I can decorate it with a vacation theme but when I saw this Mickey one, I fell in love with it. How can I now? It's Mickey!! My all-time favorite cartoon character! Then with all kinds of ideas in my head, I started picking up all the backgrounds, embossments, borders, ribbons and scraps. In the end, the final total came to $ 58.68. Definitely not a cheap hobby but hey, this last me for quite sometime and this is the only expensive hobby I have. The best about scrapbooking is when the memories of the photos come back to me. Both good and bad always catch up on me, reminding me of how important my family and friends are to me.

The only one album that I couldn't finish is the one I did for 'us'. Everytime I took the effort to finish it, I can only go so far because I get so upset and tears start to fall. They were happy days but how could I have been so naive to believe that we were meant to be? That he was different than the others? So that album remains half-filled.

truffles

The week past in a blink whenever I get caught up in work and especially when good results are in my hands. I am now closer to purifying the protein I have been trying to get my hands on for the past couple of months. There's a couple more 'cleaning' steps that needs to be done and to repeat with a larger batch of culture to get more of the protein. So, rejoice!!

As dad always reminds me, we should celebrate every achievement in our lives. We don't have to wait for a birthday or graduation to celebrate. Remembering that, I decided to do something fun on Friday night - Latin dance! Haven't done that since Dan went back to California. Planned to go with Fan but unfortunately, something came up for Fan so I decided to just come home and add a few more pages to my scrapbooking project.

But I still felt like rewarding myself...so what should I do? Chocolates!! Drove to 'How Sweet It Is' chocolate store at Hannah Plaza and bought myself a box of chocolate truffles. They are chocolates made into ball-like shape and dusted with cocoa powder (don't mix this up with the truffle that refers to a type of edible fungi!). They are not the standard of Godiva or The Chocolate Truffle which are both well-known internationally but hei, local made stuff can be good too. Especially when each truffle costs me 59 cents!! Yup, it's freaking expensive, which is why it's only worth it when I need to reward myself.

There are 12 in the box and I've tried two of them. The picture below is the 'chocolate cream cheese truffle' which is the one I prefers among the two I've tried. It's hard on the outside and soft on the inside. It has a slight sour taste from the cream cheese in addition to the bitter chocolate. Definitely worth the price when compared to these cheap ones we get at Meijer with extremely high sugar content. You can really taste the cocoa and the milk content is not as high either. Even the cocoa dust was licked from my fingers when I'm done with the truffle...gotta treasure every cent of it mer. kekeke...

The truffles remind me of another fact of life...life is like a box of chocolate. I can't remember where this phrase came from but I definitely agree with it. No matter how careful we plan (how careful we pick out the chocolates), we don't really know what's going to happen until it happens (like we don't know what's inside the chocolate until we take the first bite). While next week is gonna be another busy week for me as I pursue my protein to purity, there bound to be unexpected incidents. But right now, I'm enjoying my chocolates...wonder if the box will last through the weekend in the hands of a chocoholic. *grins*

it snowed!!!

During the winter, snowy days are my favorite. The beauty of the snow flakes that fall, the sparkle of the snow during wee hours in the morning, the softness of the snow on the ground..it takes some of the cold away. In fact, it is usually not so cold when it snows unless there's strong wind at the same time. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten much snow this year. I have been here in Michigan for 5 years and none of the 5 winters were the same.

My Mid-Western friends always give me an annoyed look when I get all excited when it snows because it can be a mess especially if you're driving. But hey, coming from Malaysia, a country right on the Equator line where it's hot all year long, we don't like it when it rains heavily either. It is a mess but it is always kinda nice when you're out there playing under the rain. The snow is like the same thing...it's a mess especially if it's gonna be really cold the next day and they freeze up, making it hard to walk what more drive, or if it's gonna warm up the next day, making all the snow turn to slush...but when it is snowing, it's a beautiful sight. You don't even have to be out there in the cold to appreciate it because it looks pretty enough from the window.

When it started snowing last night, I was hoping it will last through the night. With my crappy mood from my weird stomach ache, any cheering up will be good for me. So the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to look out my bedroom window and guess what???...the snow did last through the night!! It's definitely something to rejoice about since the last snow we got was during Christmas and it has been dull and depressing. Isn't it pretty? Even without the sun, the snow somehow has a sparkle and brightness that can brighten the day.

The other thing I love about the snow is the leftovers. Not the grey slush by the road side from the dirty car tires. Not the sticky ones that stick to the sole of your shoe and make a mess outside your door. It's the ice-sculptures.

There are all kinds of shapes that you can find and they are all natural! Sometimes I'll let my imagination run wild and try to look for hidden patterns. This particular one reminds me of King Triton's spear from the Little Mermaid. If I'm lucky, there might be more around the campus tomorrow if the temperature stays low. The unique ones are usually by the river bank, where the shape is molded not just by the roots of the trees there but also by the water flow below the ice layer.