Archive for June, 2009

The swine flu pandemic that we are facing globally right now is somewhat the same like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic which lasted for two years. Within that 2 years, the Spanish flu had managed to take as many as 50 to 100 million lives all over the world. That is a pretty scary number and let us hope that history won’t repeat itself in this case.

Fortunate for us though that nowadays, in this century, we can buy an anti viral drug called the Tamiflu which works against swine flu even directly through online pharmaceutical websites. One such websites is PrimaMed.com.

Now, since medias throughout the world had publicized the swine flu pandemic, according to PrimaMed, the demand for Tamiflu had sky rocketed. Even governments are stockpiling the anti viral to use on patients that are found positive with the swine influenza virus.

Although there are medicines to lower the mortality rate, we all  should still  try our best to lower the risk of contracting the virus, by avoiding crowded places if not necessary and so on. As you may have heard the age old saying, “prevention is the best medicine”.

I was just told that my significant other will be on holiday again next week. Though it’s not like we are going on any of the exotic Caribbean cruises, but just as long as he is at home it is great.

One thing, I don’t have to prepare food in the evenings for his lunch and I can slack a bit on ironing the clothes. His holiday is somewhat my holiday too.

We do plan to go out to the weekend house again. Hopefully the weather is much warmer, and we can have barbecue and eat in the open everyday. Something which I do look forward to.

I do think that many couples may have a special love song that relates to their relationship. Mine is “You’re still the one” by Shania Twain. A long distance relationship between two people coming from two different cultures and a rather big gap in age, people didn’t believe that we could make it this far. The song is indeed a story of the journey that we’ve made to be together.

World of Warcraft or WoW is a popular multi-player role playing online game. I saw advertisements about it, read a little bit about it, and saw the game being sold in the game shops. I have not tried the game yet but I might when I have more time. This sort of game, I know, can be pretty addictive.

Many rpg online games like this one, allows players to collect virtual gold to enable them to buy items in the virtual world. There may be many options to obtain gold, however there is an easier and quicker way, i.e, buy them with real money.

There are sites where you buy WoW Gold with cash so you can buy items in the virtual WoW world. But you may want to try http://mymmoshop.com where they sell virtual currencies of the most popular multiplayer online games online. My MMO shop is rather known for quick delivery, and great customer service.

I’ve been seriously studying Japanese for a few months now. I think  I  started around February or March earlier this year.I sit down to read, write and memorize Japanese words, minimum half an hour a day, but most of the times more than that.

I believe a little doubt would manage to creep into the strongest of faith in people at times. Although, I know that, through gumption, there are people, who succeeded in speaking a foreign language fluently, I still have doubts in my own ability. It is a horrible feeling. When in comes to that, there would be so many questions that pop up to undermine my focus.

I got the 3rd book of the ‘Japanese from Zero’ series yesterday. I have not finished the 2nd book though. Going on a bit slow because I am memorizing words and also already started with my Kanji.

But being slow does demotivates a little bit. Worse of all, I am afraid that I’d forget what I’ve learnt when I progress further.

This post does sound negative doesn’t it? I’m feeling a little irritated of everything actually. I just broke my glasses for the 3rd time. One of the legs snapped off. Repairable, but annoying nevertheless. I need to get an industrial clamp or something to keep two pieces together tightly after glueing. Really wish there are some local industrial supplies online store here. Sure  am not in the mood to go out.

Anyhow, writing this post did make me feel better. It’s not that it had solved my problem but it sure did make it look like nothing to ponder upon too much.

If you ever watched any Chinese dramas that are based in ancient China, you may find out that the daughter in law of the family are rather pressured to bear the husband a child. A son in particular. If she is not able to bear a son even if she has children that are females, the husband is allowed to take another wife. Even an illegitimate son is better than legitimate daughters. Sounds horrid, but that’s how it was then.

Anyhow, since it is important to have children, for thousands of years the Chinese have used their rather well known medicinal method called ‘acupunture’ to enhance fertility, strengthen the uterus for pregnancy, improve quality of eggs in the women and sperms for the men, etc.

I found some interesting information about this on a website of Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa and fertility treatment Chicago. Besides other wellness and health services, they are also offering traditional oriental therapy such as acupunture service for health and fertility, herbal therapy, yoga classes and so on. You can find an interesting article co-authored by Jeanie Lee Bussell link on the website.

For couples who have trouble getting pregnant, I suppose taking a chance on a traditional method that has been sought after for thousands of years is worth taking.

I just received about 2 days ago,”Kanji and Kana: A Handbook and Dictionary of the Japanese Writing System” by post which I ordered through Amazon.co.uk last week. So thus began my Kanji training.

Although I’ve tried to learn a little kanji before this, but it is only now that I really sit down and write, write, write, write. Done about 18 of them only thus far. But boy, does my right hand feel tired. In fact I came online to update my blogs just to relax a bit. So far the character with the most strokes I’ve written is “Yo” - with 18 strokes. At this point I do wonder why do they bother writing a tough character with 18 strokes when they can just write ‘yo’ which is much easier. Why memorize 2000 characters when you just need to memorize 26 letters of the alphabet to write just about anything. Well, I suppose it is part of the identity of the language itself. Which makes it unique.

The only problem that I know I may face is forgetting the characters that I’ve learnt when I learn more and more new characters. I suppose that is the time when flashcards would come in handy. I am still thinking about making them myself or just buy them. Flashcards don’t come cheap. But making them are rather time consuming.

Anyhow, to get or not to get flashcards is not an issue that I should concentrate on at the moment. Learning the language and know how to read and write is. Well, good luck to myself and all who are learning this wonderful language.

I cannot count how many times I’ve moved houses in my lifetime. Within the last 10 years I’ve moved at least…5 times including one big move overseas.

We’ve moved the things ourselves and also have sometimes hired professional movers to move the things. Moving is hard work. The packing and cleaning, the organizing and then the unpacking. I wish I don’t have to go through that again. We still have to make at least one big move back over 8000 miles. So if you ask me, with all those hassle I’ve mentioned earlier, I sure would not need another one hard work of carrying and moving the furniture and boxes myself. Professional movers can be a little expensive. But are they worth it? Believe me you, they do.

I’m tutoring a young boy now to speak 2 languages. One being English, the other Malay. The mother has big plans for him. Wanted him to be a polyglot, highly paid pilot when he grows up. He could choose to be anything he wants and his parents would pave the way for him, provide him with all the things he needs.They’d be sending him to a flying school overseas in a few years time. Been telling me about their big plans. A truly fortunate child if he knows better.

But unfortunately for the parents, they brought up a rather spoilt, ungrateful brat. To teach him is really tough. Not because he is stupid but lazy and unmotivated. How do you get a child who has everything a 10 year old could have, motivated to study? Complacent and not wanting to improve. I remember myself at 10 years old being able to read and write fairly well in English, even though English is my second language. It would take him 30 minutes just  to write 2 words. Even after 2 years of tutoring him two days a week he couldn’t even form a proper English sentence. How much can a tutor do? You can take the horse by the river for a drink but you can’t make the horse drink if he doesn’t want to.

Today I will go again and force him to write (2-3 writing exercise books kept disappearing whenever I gave homework for him) and learn grammar because his mom wants him to sit for an EU standard English test in August. He couldn’t even do an example test. And not that I didn’t teach him all those things required.

All this while I asked him whether he really wants to be a pilot, he said yes. Confidently. But when it comes to work that he needs to do to get there, he changed his mind. Yesterday telling me he doesn’t know want he wants to be. Not a pilot. I told him, even if he doesn’t want to become a pilot, he still has to study. The only job which he isn’t required to study is being the garbage man. But then again, one cannot know, perhaps in 10 years time, landing a job as a garbage man requires a degree.  Hah!

I’m writing this because I feel angry actually. To think that there are so many children who wants to go to school and couldn’t. And here a  spoilt child getting the best education he could get and yet not wanting to do it. Taking everything his parents did for him for granted.  He doesn’t have to have a computer memory, all he needs is to work a little bit. But he never knew the meaning of  ‘work’.

One thing I’m quite sure is I’d never want to see my daughter like this. I won’t reward laziness and failure with toys and luxuries. Since I’ve seen myself what would happen if I do.