Brazillian Festival

After coming along with us for all our Malaysian festivals, eating our Malaysian food, tolerating our Malaysian talk, doing all our regular Malaysian stuff, we finally gave Douglas ( the only Brazillian, which we never let him forget) a break and went to a Brazillian festival. We had Brazillian dishes, dessert, and music. All in all, it was a pretty awesome cultural experience, I've never seen so many Brazillians in my life!! :)
Feijoada. A dish that consists of rice cooked with beans, some kinda vege, some kinda fried flour thingy which was delicious, meat, and oranges!! They have their oranges in their rice cause apparently it helps with digestion!! Which is weird. And the beans are kinda salty and garlicky.. (Which explains why Douglas once poured our sweet red bean soup all over his rice once!) So this is how a regular everyday dish looks in Brazil.
The chocolate thing in Lalita's hand is called a Brigadeiro. Its basically chocolate made into balls with condensed milk. The orange thing is called a Quindim, and its custard and egg I think. The white ball is a Pao de Quiejo ( I forgot the spelling) and its my favourite!! Its basically just bread with gloriously melted cheese inside!!! And the nipple-shaped thing is a Coxinha, its a fried thing with chicken and potato in there I think. And the flat thing is a Pastel... or Patel, whichever, that's fried pastry with either minced meat or cheese in there. We got the minced meat one, delish!!! :)
And this is a drink everyone drinks in BRazil... Its made from this fruit called the guarana... and its really really yummy. Its sorta an energy drink, only healthier. So apparently most people drink this instead of Coke.
THen there were some dancers in their traditional gear.
Traditional drums. THis was awesome!!!
The live Brazillian band. They played some really cool songs too.
The food area. The cooks were all Brazilian, and when I was there they were all speaking in Portuguese, it was so awesome!! It was like I was in a telenovela or something ( and you know how much I love my telenovelas!!)... Man I was so hoping one of them would speak to me in Portuguese and I could reply 'Eu no fala Portuguese, voce falo Ingles??' ( Meaning: I don't speak Portuguese, do you speak Englsh??' Muahahahahaha.

This was really an experience. Really enjoyed it, and Brazillian food is goooooooood!!!! :)

Halloween

Halloween. October 31st.
So just a little interesting tidbit. The origins of Halloween can be traced back to an old Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain roughly means 'summer's end'. So apparently this festival was to celebrate the end of the lighter half of the year and the beginning of the darker half (winter). The ancient celts also believed that on this day, the border between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest and therefore, spirits and demons and all those other nasties that go bump in the night would be free to travel into our world. Hence, the use of masks to ward off these evil beings. ( Though how they think a mask would scare off evil spirits I really don't know.)
So anyway, in the true spirit of Halloween, Audrey organized a Halloween Costume Party and we all got into our costumes to celebrate!!
I went as a She-Devil. Black eyeliner, check. Red lipstick, check. Pitchfork, check. Tail, check. Red dress, check.
There was Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise from Risky Business, A Mexican, Audrey Hepburn ( which is ironic because the person who's Audrey Hepburn is Audrey!), a Geisha, and DEATH.
Devil looking up the Mexican's poncho. :)

Then Wolverine showed up. But by this point, his hair had dropped a little bit....so it was a little bit harder to identify..
Death and the Devil taking a break after a long day's work.
Then someone showed up as Facebook!!! Original!!!!
Fred Flinstone.
Pirate.
We also had a chance to rock on rock band!!!
All in all, it was an awesome party!!!!

To live or not to live?

Modern medicine is, to put it simply, nothing short of miraculous.
I work in a hospital and still all these new procedures and new ways to prolong the human life has never ceased to amaze me.
But sometimes I wonder, is modern medicine really bringing us more good than harm??
I look at some of my patients sometimes, depending on all kinds of machines to survive. Getting invasive tubes inserted, getting little devices inserted to replace the heart, barely hanging on to that thin thread of life.
Sometimes, is it better to just let go, and go the way nature intended? Even ( who knows) the way God intended?
What is the point to prolong life when you are going to go through life being just a shadow of the person you were? No longer able to walk and run and jump and dance. No longer able to eat whatever you wanted to. No longer able to sit in the sun whenever you want to, to take a shower without someone there watching you, to even move in your own bed without someone there assisting you.
How horrible it must be to live life like that.
I believe we should all fight to live, but sometimes, when it is obvious who is winning the battle, would it be wiser to just let go, and leave this life with whatever dignity you have left? So that people remember you as you were, not what you had become?
This is really grey area I know, but it's just been on my mind for a while.
Feel free to comment :)

Pictures tell a story better.

Yes yes, I haven't been updating my blog lately. Shame on me, bla bla bla.
But life has been pretty busy. Not just from all the fun I've been having *GRIN* but also because I have had 3 major assignments due in the last 4 weeks and my 3-week intensive placement is up and after that one major exam.
Whew. Its no piece of cake being in uni.
So anyway. I've been up to a few things, most of which involves food unfortunately.
There was a Hari Raya Open House thing at Adelaide Uni, and since it wasn't just Malaysian food, it was FREE.
Being the cheapos that we are and am proud of, we hopped on the bus and made our way down to the Barr-Smith Lawns of Adelaide Uni. Patriotism. Ahhh.

Amanda and I with our Malaysian food. (Some of which I never even knew existed in the first place. Shows how much I know about my own culture :D)
There was laksa, rojak, and you can't see what used to be in the middle plate, but there was satay sauce, ketupat, pineapple rice, cornflake cookies, rendang, and ayam merah ( or sth liddat)
Trying my bestest to explain our Malaysian flag. But judging from the looks on my friends' faces, I don't think I did the best job... plus I think I got some colours mixed up a little. White doesn't symbolize surrender apparently. whoops.
Taking a picture with the flag with all the wannabes. :D
Then there was Steamboat!!! Which was awesome.
Also for Dileepa's birthday. Which wasn't very fair because we celebrated his birthday 3 times. So he had 3 birthday cakes!!!
Somebody tell me how that is fair!!
Namgay, Caro and I
The girls.
The whole group.
And then, the beach!!! Where the water was unbelievably cold ( I'm talking Titanic cold here!!) but we die-hard beach-goers went anyway.
There was a certain amount of volleyball-ing.
Okay, a LOT of volley-balling as the water was simply too cold!
Nevis and I
There were some attempts to get an even tan. Attempts made said person look like a beached whale, unfortunately.
Group photo as always.
Then Lalita and Amanda decided to cook for us in Amanda's spiffy new kitchen in her spiffy, white, new home!
Group photo again, a must-have in every occasion, even if its just on a mattress with a white background. :)
The food was delicious!!!

Congrats, Ivory!!

I'm so proud of my sister.
Hahahahaha. I just thought I'd say this here. She got her article published in The Star.
And she did an awesome job too!
This is the link to the article she got published. Read it!

http://insanitysquill.blogspot.com/2009/09/he-had-always-wanted-to-be-soldier.html

The Heart Of Life

As a kid I loved bubbles. Didn't everybody?
There was nothing better than having a full bottle of soapy liquid and that ring thing where you blow your bubbles out of on a lazy afternoon. I used to blow hundreds of bubbles in the shortest time possible, and then run through the haze of bubbles I'd created.
Feeling the bubbles pop on my face, watching the sunlight spread into a million colours when it hit the bubbles in the air.
I was walking in Rundle Mall the other day, and there was this bubble machine. There were kids running around in front of it, popping the bubbles, much like I used to do.
It threw me back into the past a bit. And for I started reminiscing about my childhood and all the awesome things we did as kids that we stopped doing for some reason. Running until there was no breath left, laughing and talking so loudly without any care who heard us, wearing whatever we wanted to, asking whatever questions we wanted to. What happened?
When did we stop asking questions? When did we start caring so much about what others thought about us? And for awhile there, I yearned for my childhood again. I wanted so much to just go back in time and relive my childhood.
I know some people say the best time of your life is when you're at your peak. In your twenties. But I think the best time of my life was when I was a child. I had such freedom. Such freedom from the bad parts of life. From the worrying, stressful, responsible part of life. Isn't that the best thing on earth? Freedom?
Life works in such mysterious ways.
Or maybe it's God that works in such mysterious ways.
If you asked me 8 years ago, would I be here, in Australia, studying and working at the same time, Doing 3000 word essays, working 8 hour shifts, meeting new people everyday? I would never have imagined myself here.
Now, looking back, I see how so many things lead me to where I am now.
It was like God planted tiny little seeds along my path of life, to steer me down the path he wanted me to take.
If it wasn't for my asthma, would my parents have sent me swimming?
If I hadn't gone to that particular swimming class that day, would the coach have picked me for training? Would I have been swimming for almost 7 years, meeting all those awesome people, making lifelong friends?
If I hadn't been swimming, would I have been accepted into my high school?
I would never have met all those friends, never met those people who would influence me to make the decisions leading up till now.
Amazing, really.

There is a song by John Mayer that I really like.
As much for the lyrics as for the melody.
'Pain throws your heart to the ground, love turns the whole thing around. No, it won't all go the way it should, but I know, the Heart of Life is good.'
If we really sit, and think about it, everything we go through. Every tear, every frown, every laugh and every word. It all happened for a reason, God knew all along, God had a reason. So maybe we should all take the advice from this picture below and sit in silence for at least 10 minutes a day. Take that time to think about what you did today.
Did you make a difference?
Did you live life today?

Holidays

Nothing's been up these days.
I'm on my 2 week semester break now but it doesn't really feel like it probably because I've been so busy working and finishing up my damned assignments. They're never ending!!!
But in the meantime I've been swimming a lot lately, also most probably because I've got someone to go swimming with now so I'm a bit more motivated to swim now.
I've forgotten how much I love swimming until I've started swimming regularly. How could I have stopped for so long???
I've become so unfit it's not even funny. But at least I still remember to swim, so I'm getting there!! Damn, I miss those swimming competitons. The adrenaline, the people, the whole atmosphere in general, those warming-up sessions, those familiar rivals, the disappointments and the laughs. If there was a period in my life I could go back to, that would be it. The swimming days. But until someone creates a time machine that doesn't have fatal consequences, I guess the memories will have to do.
We had steamboat for Dileepa's birthday, maybe when I can muster up the energy I'll upload those photos here. If not, check my facebook!! :)