What I believe

Between thought and action lies speech, which can substitute for either. It can just as easily mask thoughtlessness as impede action.

Right speech, however, does not substitute for thought or action, but mediates them. Giving expression to thought, it enables intelligent action.

 Found this quotation here

Ten Commandments for Cath

• Thou art thy own Future; empower thyself with knowledge – study with ardent fervor
• Thy work shalt not survive more than one week; make finishing it thy priority
• Sleep and rise well; stay not up late, lest thou risk thy good health
• Saturated fat is obnoxious, junk food and soft drink is obscene; embrace fruits and veggies as thy savior
• Mens Sana in corpore sano (In a healthy body resides a healthy mind) Dedicate several minutes of thy day for sport
• A baking a day kicks the unskillful hands away, so practice baking more.
• Fill thy days with love and joy... No more crybaby
• Time is precious; dost not be online every so often, for thou only end up wasting thy time
• No, seriously, sign out of YM and MSN, now! Shut the damn laptop and read more!
• Thou shalt not hit that “Publish” button; write meaningful essays only

Corollary:
And thus the existence of this post as a model, a conclusion is hereby drawn: The Commandments hath been broken… again.
What’s wrong with the world?

Banana Pie

This one I baked quite some time ago, before the time I took culinary lesson even. I promised Avi, my friend, that I would post the recipe here, and so, after some time of delay, here it is:

This is my own banana pie, so you will see how simple it is. You can always change the fruit here, apple pie is good, but banana is a lot cheaper here. Here's a hint on how to make an amazing pie: don't hesitate to put extra sugar. Pie and diet won't mix.

Ingredients:

For the skin (batter)

500 gr of flour
300gr of sugar
1/2 pack of margarine (around 100 gr)
1 egg
1/4 glass of water
Milk in proportion

For the inside

5 bananas, just cut them
2 spoonful of honey

For the topping on the bananas/ sprinkles (whatever it is, hope you know what I mean)

3 spoonful of sugar
3 spoonful of flour
2 spoonful of cinnamon powder

How to bake

Mix the bananas with honey for some time

For the skin(batter). In separate place, we can mix with fork: flour, sugar, egg and the margarine until it shapes like this.

mmm... the smell is good

Pour the water little by little inside. Don't pour too much, little by little. If it's not sticky in our hands and the batter is easily bent already, don't pour any water anymore. If the water is too much, add more flour and the sugar. Then, take half and make the skin and roll it flat.

Now, for the sprinkles, in another bowl, mix all the cinnamon powder, sugar and flour (This is what makes people fat) :p

Put the inside ingredients, the banana mixed with honey on the skin made of half of the batter, and sprinkle it with the topping ingredients (the sugar, flour and cinnamon powder).

Make another skin from another half of the batter, then close the it with the other skin. The shape can vary as we like, most importantly, there are some holes, so that it won't swell. Put some milk on the skin so that it is shiny after coming out of oven.

Bake in the oven in 220 C

Yummy!!!

Students of the day! ^^

My last students of today! So cute and bright students they are...

Teaching, as it turns out, not only is it a serious business but also FUN one!!

Smile of students today

Children, they always bring smile to me. Children are easily made happy. No worries in their heads. It's so easy to make them laugh and smile.
Today, I attended a class, they are the youngest students I have in this new semester. And they are very cute!! Especially the kid in the middle of the pic. His name is Vincent.  I JUST LOVE THEM! ♥♥♥ It's nice to be with them, as if I am blending my world with them, really can't help smiling when teaching them. (Forgetting my hurting legs that fast) It's going to be one of my favorite classes.

Why I should keep walking (Metaphor)

You know it's coming. There's a smell in the air and an intense anticipation in the sky. The wind has waited while dirty cotton clouds blanket the earth, changing the look of everything. With the harsh yellow sun now reduced to a memory, you see the world now only in storm colors.

Everything is cold and steely. The clouds have put an edge on everything, bringing out the other colors that a sunny, hazy day can not. From the tint of the grass I know a few drops of rain have fallen already. I look at the trees around me, in a shade of green reserved mostly for the emerald isle. This is the green of growth, of life, of pain, of storms. Yes, more is still to come. Probably much more. 

Oh the memories! The longer I linger in daytime dusk, the more I get soaked in the colors around, swallowing my tears. Am I that weak? I refuse to think so.

I hoist my umbrella, the rain starts falling and collects on my umbrella, gathering in beads, then skating across the umbrella in a gleeful, meandering sort of way. The memories keep coming, but I want to keep walking, it does not make me stop wanting to walk. I head towards my destination to avoid the rain and avoid the memories of those wet summer days. I am under the umbrella, protected. I keep telling myself... But then why is it so cold, why is the chill attacking me?

Back in that summer it might have been the end of a day at the beach or a day in the woods. We'd run, laughing, dancing in the woods where our love found its way. But those days were past..The lightning, fighting its way across the sky was the soft kiss,a kiss to remember, that the rain would be heavy, would not end soon. The invisible thunder was the laughter, alluding me...

I cast a last glance to my stormy sky...I'm waiting for a rainbow to smile back at me, and the clouds part away so the sun can shine in... It won't be that bad afterall...        

Mere rant

How is everyone doing today?
I'm not really good these days...

There's too much blood I am seeing today, literally, and too much emotional anguish. It's hard to see the silver lining these days, and I think I am giving up.

I am an impressionable individual, I realize... It's gonna be hard to weave the shattered threads of emotion back into the strong one as how it is supposed to be. Slap me in the face, pls...

Germany rocks!!

It's so spectacular, I am proud of Germany! Germany just won 4-0 against Argentina! Just as the news in FIFA.com says it "It's a masterful performance". My favorite player, Miroslav Klose, number 11, has scored 14 goals in FIFA World Cup, just one short of Ronaldo, Brazilian player, all time record. Wow!

courtesy of FIFA.com

 

And later, Paraguay Vs Spain, I hope Spain will win. But that also means if Spain wins, it's going to face Germany in Semi Final. Of course I want Germany to win. Actually, I hope Spain will be the 2nd winner in World Cup after Germany, but it's impossible, as they are gonna meet in Semi Final, so my prediction is at least Spain gets the 3rd then. Either way, it's going to be great match, so looking forward to it! I am sooo happy!!

Japan, The Blue Samurai... Arigato Gozaimasu

Today Japan lost against Paraguay. I had so much hope on Japan, as the only Asian team left in the World Cup game. No matter which won, it would create history as both of the teams never got into the last eight. In the end, after seemed like endless and intense battle, Paraguay and Japan had to settle their score in penalties. Both teams played so well, with the result 0-0 at first regular 90 minutes, and they were given additional 30 minutes to score the game, and eventually they had to decide via penalties... And... Finally it ended! This is probably the longest game yet in the World Cup 2010 consuming more than 2 hours of game play and driving tension into both sides. Paraguay scored the win over Japan, 5-3 after a penalty shoot out...( Only one player of nine missed but victory was Paraguay's by this narrowest of margins, Yuichi Komano's penalty miss sent Japan crashing out of the tournament, IT'S really a mental challenge in this penalty, even I felt like I almost got heart attack). What a painful way to decide the game, even for the winning side. But Paraguay is through to its first quarterfinal and Japan has to exit, despite a fantastic performance throughout the tournament.

courtesy of FIFA.com

Here's a glimpse of what I read about it in the news..

Japan and Paraguay engaged in a very tense match and it seems no one wants to give in. Japan is very confident to win the match as they are now representing the whole Asian continent but that alone was not able to make them win in the end.  Even if they do lost, this match will be remembered.

I am so proud of Japan, they have done their best, they should be proud!

Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009)

Rated: R (Restricted) [See Full Rating]for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language
 
Movies often give people the opportunity to experience worlds or places that are foreign to them. These are sometimes worlds of total make believe or they can be very, very real. Precious takes movie watchers into the very hard and gritty inner city and shows what it's like to try and grow up when everything in the world seems to be pulling against you and trying to keep you down.

This film follows Precious Jones, a morbidly obese teenage girl so void of self-worth that she refers to herself without irony as "ugly black grease to be washed from the street living in the inner city". She has had two pregnancies because of being raped by her father, an abusive mother, a school system that doesn't care about her and it seems hope is far fetched in her life. Therefore, despite her name, she is never treated as precious by anyone who is supposed to care about her, like her family. She fantasizes that she is a celebrity, in a world where she is precious, which makes me even more touched by this agony. Precious begins to find some value in her life though when she starts attending an alternative school where a teacher and a social worker start to show her that her life is worth something.

The circumstances surrounding the story being told are just unbelievably sad. With that sadness though come a very few glimmers of hope. In a life where it seems like no one ever loved her, Precious finds love, encouragement, and some value for her life. If it weren't for that this would have been the saddest movie ever. The unenviable mother-daughter relationship is the crux of the film, and it is here the film gives an unblinking account of monstrous physical and psychological abuse that explains the sharp contrast between Precious' inner and outer lives

The best thing about this film are the performances. It is easy to single out Mo'Nique or Gabourey Sidibe, but really the whole cast shines. It is Mo'Nique's performance that stirs up the most praise though. She embodies Mrs. Jones in every aspect. Her performance is so shattering, gritty and real! She goes hideous in this movie, and it's truly amazing. She makes you cringe, she makes you shake your head, she may even make you cry with how nasty and hateful she is. She never compromises the hardness in her character, and her self-justifying monologue is an impressive piece of work.

It's a tough watch, it is the realism that pulls you to appreciate 'Precious'.

80% for this movie.

Football fever and superstition (another quasi rant)

Ok, since 2002, I have grown my interest in football. I had to skip the World Cup 2006 because of the huge time difference and I was still in university, I couldn't possibly watch it. And this time, with perfect timing cos it's held in South Africa, I can finally watch! Yeay....

Well, for now, I really wanna share how I get superstitious nowadays, lol, wait lemme argue on this...

You see, I support Germany so much to win the World Cup, and closely followed by Spain and Brazil. Then I also see how persistence Asian teams are (the South and North Koreans as well as Japan), so I do want to give support to them. I am Asian, anyhow. :P

The thing is, when I skipped some games due to one or few reasons, They kinda won or at least gave a great performance. Such as Germany when against Australia, they won 4-0. and South Korean also won 2-0 against Greece, and Japan won 1-0 against Cameroon, and everyone knows Cameroon was a great team compared to Japanese team which is quite recent team. No Hidetoshi Nakata tho, sadly, I actually wanted to see him play in Japanese team. Now on Brazil against North Korea last time, I supported Brazil of course, and Brazil won 2-1 but back then North Korea also gave such a good performance against Brazil. In short, they all made a good performance "when" I didn't watch...

Now, let's see when I finally got to watch them play.Starting from Spain lost to Swiss 0-1, Germany lost to Serbia 0-1, and then South Korea lost to Argentina 0-4, and then Japan lost to Netherlands 0-1, and North Korea today just lost 0-7 to Portugal. You see, it's a pattern!! :(( Why when I watched the games, they lost and when I didn't watch, they won...

Oh well, of course, I am not serious to say I am really superstitious about this, but I seriously feel a lil painful when I watch my favourite teams losing.

Anyway, Ganbatte! There is still hope for them to go to TOP 16, except for North Korea, it's not like I totally go for North Korea, it's just cos it's one of the rare Asian teams. I'll support Japan more. And tonight there's Spain playing, I hope it wins this time!

But on top of all, Germany had better go to top 16!