cadbury madness

oh dear cadbury,
why must you begrudge them so?
allies they mayn't be
do they seem better as your foe?

"Chocolate makers Magic Chef, Alpha Confectionary and the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company were all threatened with legal action for using purple in their packaging."

oh cadbury bully,
why do you get swayed by power?
little 'uns get threats
but nestle doesn't need to cower?

"It allowed Nestle to use purple in Violet Crumble, Wonka, Quality Street and Polly Waffle bars." full story @ news.com.au

oh your purpleness,
when will you end this daft crusade?
i've purpled this post
now should i start seeking legal aid?

a different kind of splish splashing

the sun is out with nary a cloud to cast any shadows of relief. the waters are turquoise, crystal clear with sparkles reflecting millions of tiny twinkles. the sea breeze playfully dances with the blanket of warmth draped over the shoulders. refreshingly icy coolness laps at the ankle, whirlpools of sand tickling between the toes.

the horizon looks so tantalizing near as you wade out into the immense expanse of freedom and new adventures. pumped to tackle the world, you suddenly lose that grainy footing. no more ticklies. you see shadows zooming past out of the corner of your eye. icy water rushes up your nose and you splutter and chortle. splish splash goes the arms, flailing haphazardly as you slowly lose sight of the horizon. everything begins to go pink and blurry, you start forgetting where you are...disorientated

do you ever get days like these? i hope you never do.

see-saw

good news, bad news. back to good, another round of bad. a vicious cycle but really, without the bad, how can you call something good? even if you managed to find a way to, i doubt the goodness would be appreciated as much without previous helpings of badness.

bad news would be that it's been a week and i still haven't managed to ditch those yellow boogers. admittedly, i'm not as miserable as booyahman but it's still not much fun to have a constantly dripping nose. aloe vera kleenex has prevented further peeling and taken away the pain after every nose wipe but nothing more. good news is that my appetite hasn't waned even once... i still gobble up chocolates faster than cookie monster does with his cookies, i still hanker after certain foods including dumplings. was reminded they existed during the tzuching camp so i went looking for round white dumpling skins but had to make do with square yellow wonton ones. hmph.

sad news would be the possible lack of wedding bells for an old friend. silly as it sounds, i nearly sobbed tears of indignation as she recounted and vented. felt really helpless, unable to even give her a simple hug. happy news would be the engagement of another old friend. a birthday she will never forget, no doubt =)

depressing news would be my 8am start at the OTs tomorrow. blue scrubs to match a blue mood at the return to classes. delightful news would be realization of a week cut short with the weekend looming close... wheee!

worrying news would be the backlog of work to plod through. news of relief is that i won't torture you all with this drawn-out exercise and should go offline.

OOoo ooh, for those of you who use google calendar... my own aemii's, bdaes & holidays and schmacademics calendars are up for linking. would love to be able to sync schedules with all you busybodies scattered across the various continents! (pssst lu, this means better and/or more frequent planning of rendevous! should drag liz along for the next one...)

the calm before a storm

seems like there have been a lot of bones to pick recently. busy busy.
certain posts have irked me for the sheer fact that they paint an untrue picture.
certain comments have irked me for the sheer miscommunication apparent.
funny how they both lead down the same road.
not funny how tension has been discretely bubbling for some time now.

i almost blew my top for all to see. in fact, i did blow my top behind the sanctuary of my screen. i almost opened my vintage pandora's box. that'd be a chilling sight to behold, let me warn you. a few things did leak as i cracked the box's seal but a few people quickly wrenched the box away, caught the bad vibes and returned them to their locked resting place.

deep breaths. deep breaths.
listen to the wise one...

[mr v] says:
bad karma does you no good

gan'en.

homecoming

that mysterious blue slip arrived in the mailbox, the one that announced the arrival of a registered package waiting to be picked up in the mailroom. picked it up, i did! the heart did a marathon of *lubdubs* as i sped home to open it up. mr snuffles was gonna suffocate in there!!

working the penknife with the skill and agility of macgyver, i raced to free mr snuffles from his cardboard prison. a very sorry sight greeted me... mr. snuffles! what have they done to you?! seeing him bound and gagged by a magenta ribbon in a recyclable plastic bag, i couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. a sweet gesture by the doll hospital to send him home all tied up with ribbon, i must say. very cute =)



the doll hospital must not have been that bad, snufflewuggles... don't give me that look! it was for your own good, getting that hernia of yours repaired! and look at you! you've put on weight in there. your butt's no longer saggy and you look 10 years younger =)

he's been home for a day or two now and he still doesn't believe that he's been fixed. still grumpy at the fact that he was sent away for 2 weeks, grumpy that it was all disguised under the veil of a vacation. at the moment, he's still getting used to his firmer butt. actually, i am too. it packs a wallop of a punch when he inadvertently sits on me now. hmph.

mr snuffles, hurry and wear in your new butt! you've got a few newfound friends that wish you a speedy recover and want to play with you! one day, someday... he'll hopefully get to meet sad sam and have that fight with yoshi bear =)


.

how dare you

my eyes grew wide and ears perked up when came across a certain post of potatohead's whilst trawling my bloglines stash. you've got to be kidding!? i thought... so rather than rant and rave first before gathering my facts later, i turned to trusty ol' google (which in fact, isn't as trusty as you'd think. as the lovely mr. v pointed out, just try googling "tiananmen" in global google images and google china images)

so anyway, i tried all sorts of combinations and forms of "united nations" with "mandarin" and "traditional" and even "abolish" on both google and the UN webby to no avail. i kept getting sporadic, random pages. mostly irrelevant. a forum discussing this petition was trudged up from the midst of all the cyberjunk but i steered myself away. forums are awful places to be at, efficient timesinks to draw one into heated type-fests as opinions clashing in the virtual world create ripples into the real world.

from what i can gather, there was a miscommunication and a dash of sensationalization. the u.n. is receiving the benefit of the doubt, just to be clear. conspiracy theories abound in my little head you see. a random xangan i googled somewhat clarified what seemed more and more to be another urban legend, this whole abolition of traditional chinese business. she posted an article regarding the issue including "Local media reported yesterday that most of the supporters were overseas Chinese instead of local Taiwanese and attempted to dig into the issue." well now. overseas chinese eh? well no shit. of course we make up the majority when you leave out the mega millions of chinese in mainland china. what is there about that statement making it deserving of being bolded? enlighten me. while you're at it, enlighten me as to why the rest of the statements in bold are the way they are...

dear u.n. people...

i had originally wanted to rant and rave, asking how dare you abolish a flourishing language that has been in everyday use in at least 3 different countries for at least the past half a century. i was going to ask how you can call yourself a representative of our world and still hold your head above the shameful irony. apologies for jumping to conclusions, for i did a bit of snooping around.

ok. i get it. so you want to abolish all forms of traditional mandarin from all your publications and such. assuming that there's no other hidden agenda, go ahead u.n. go ahead. just don't impose your own set of rules on the rest of the world, for that would be ridiculous. as ridiculous as the rest of the world insisting that we will only accept one version of english. howdja lik it if engwish as wee noe it will henz4th b typed lik dis? hw'd u lk it if we suddnly had 2 uze a shrtr, mor smplified v. of chnze??

do you understand where i'm coming from? do you see what a harebrained scheme this abolition of traditional chinese is, should it be what the people on the internet claim? is that not what you were planning? you were already publishing everything mandarin using the simplified version, so why choose to make an official announcement about it and set a target date? that's akin to me clanging the pots and pans to announce that i'm going to officially start using my green towel in 5 minutes henceforth even though everyone else in the cabin has seen me with the only towel, a green one no less, i packed for the past 3 days.

whatever it is you had wanted to achieve from this announcement, i don't know but good for you. that being said, it's not going to stop the rest of us who value the cultural and historical value of traditional mandarin from continuing to use it, to teach it, to pass it on.

"Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng also said that due to the language's historical and cultural significance, the MOE is firm in its stance that traditional Chinese characters will continue to be taught in local educational institutions regardless of the U.N.'s decision." says the article. atta boy!

just wanted to let you know...

...that my presentation didn't go as smoothly as i'd have liked it to but it's over and done with.

kleenex anti-viral was a new discovery. their "kills 99% of cold & flu viruses* in the tissue" with "*virucidal against influenza A&B (causes of the flue), rhinoviruses type 1A and 2 (leading cause of the common cold) and respiratory syncytial virus (rsv - leading cause of lower respiratory infection in children.)" small print was impressive. that's not what brings me back tho. it's the pretty kleenex tissue itself with itty bitty pretty blue mizutama happily dancing across like waves of pollen that keeps me blowing my nose, sneeze after sneeze =)

i'm also still on my adrenaline rush from all my newfound friends from this past weekend. like i said, it was like going home... on a frowny note, i'm missin all the goofy times we had, short as they might've been. i'm also now sporting a croaky sore throat and dribbling neon boogers that could be distant cousins to melted kryptonite. *sniffles*

on a happy note, i've just received a notice to pick up a registered parcel from the mail room. i'm hoping it contains mr snuffles ~ it's been 2 weeks and i miss him =( mr snuffles, come home soon. mr booger and his yellow friend are dying to meet you!

this little light of mine...

candles have always fascinated me. so much so that i've been accused of being a pyromaniac during the first tutorial of my degree on "the fishing trip" - 'twas a problem-based learning exercise that teleported the entire group onto a rickety fishing boat that got blown out to sea, only to end up on a deserted island with limited supplies. i think there was alcohol and there were books in the inventory that i had wanted to burn to keep everyone warm.

sometimes, i'll light candles for the heck of it and other times, it'll be out of necessity. a few times, i've been scared outta my mind as i get jolted awake by the awful screeching of the fire alarms in the middle of the night. thank goodness that's a rarity, thank goodness the culprit wasn't me =P despite the repeated scares, i still don't learn and am now looking foward to the dark and gloomy winter nights when i'll be able to initiate candlemania. you know how a werewolf'll only transform under a full moon? the same could be said of me... transforming into a pyromaniac only under the blanket of darkness =)

anyway, i digress. didn't mean to raise a few eyebrows with all this talk of candles and burning things. all i wanted to do was to jot down something that caught my attention, for my own sake. 'twasnt the first time i've heard it said, but it resurfaced again during one of the video clips at the camp. with my memory as bad as it is, i don't quite remember the exact phrasing but it was to do with how one should strive to be like a candle. "huhh??" you ask? nooo don't give me that look! i aint off my rockers... yet.

what it's trying to convey is that the candle is self-sacrificing. burning, diligently carrying out what it was made to do, consuming itself for the greater good to give light, to guide, to lead the way for everyone else. it's also about how a wee little candle can make huge ripples of difference and how it's something to mull over. something to keep in mind. and with that, i'll leave you with my snappy happy collection of various flames of the non-romantic kind =) credits to mish for the tzuching candle art heart snap!


lotsa gratitude, little light... 感恩. gan'en

the debrief

i had expected to come home dead beat after this camp of mine over the easter weekend. with a statement like that, you know that i'm gonna tell you i'm not dead beat. *nodnod* em, you hit the nail on the head miss conference geek! i miss conferences.. i miss being involved. i miss being proactive. i miss being needed. maybe it's some unaddressed want to be accepted, to feel useful or maybe i just need that ego boost now and then to keep me afloat. whatever the case may be, i've gotten a double dose of conferences and mass gatherings of the intellectual and goofy kind recently and that's not good. i think i'm addicted =(

no words can describe the weekend... pictures and music, maybe. not quite tho. it's one of those things you have to be there for. the timetable lies as a string of words and numbers, meaningless to those who didn't hear the enlightening and sometimes whimsical speakers in person. the food was to die for and yes, it was all vegetarian. fried mantou, sushi and chinese veggie burgers represent only a minute proportion of the gastronomical delights. chinese veggie burgers i say, because for some insane reason, they taste like something outta those little brekkie shops in taiwan. nothing like the horrible veggie burger roll thingies they serve up at burger king or mickey dees!

a lot of things at the camp reminded me of home. the little things. warm welcomes. instant acceptance without preconceived judgements about a person per se. the quiet sneaking of little vitamin c tablets next to our bowls during meals. mass braiding sessions in the morning for those who couldn't braid their own pigtails - i felt like i had a football team of little sisters! lotsa smiles. lotsa encouragement. lotsa positive thinking. lotsa "it's ok"s. at the expense of sounding like a hippie transported from the flower power free love era, i've gotta say that there was hella lotta love in one place this weekend... the kind you feel when you've come back from a long tiring day to be greeted by the mother's cooking wafting through the air, where you walk into your bathroom and there are fresh soft fluffy towels, still slightly warm from the dryer, next to a new shower cap in your favorite color.

some of you may know about my fear of mass congregations of asians in general... maybe it's a banana complex, white on the inside, yellow on the outside but i attribute it more to the fact that i've had the worst luck when it comes to meeting fellow asians. i s'pose i come across as an ingrate, one who doesn't appreciate one's own race but don't get me wrong... i only have problems with asians as a collective entity. i know i'm generalizing, i know i'm stereotyping. indulge me... they travel in hordes. they talk real loud, second to the americans around here. here we go, fist in my mouth again.. oops. anyway, back to the asians. they bring with them the worst set of personal ethics and habits and leave the place worse off than a pigsty. sometimes they leave a coat of oil so thick that the next dorm occupant is surprised by the white kitchen tiles beneath the brown muck. you know, as a nice welcome gift for the next person. see what i mean about personal ethics? charming. maddenly so.


this was one of the few times that i liked being around asians. i liked finding similarities (and many did i find! my msn list is now half a foot longer and my memory lane now stretches a few miles further) with fellow taiwanese campers. i wanted to find more similarities, to find my little niche of belonging. this has nothing to do with the poor kenny bashing, really =) S reflected in a wave of amazement... "you know, this is the first time i've been in the company of so many taiwanese people!" and then she grinned as she saw the lightbulbs go off above the heads of each of us girlies in the bunk and produced similar grins too.

4 days and one firmer tummy later, thanks to the laughs.. i'm finally back in newie from my little chooq's maiden drive down the F3 to sydney in one piece. am dreading the next 4 days of this week, for that means class. looking very forward to anzac day next tuesday for all the wrong reasons but hey, holidays are scarce. you take what you can =)