Broke fast in less than a day

The fast lasted for almost three quarters of a day. At 2pm, I was at the meeting room feeling incredibly drained (physically, mentally) and decided to turn to some caffeine. Got home at 5.30pm with a splitting headache and work left half undone. I thought to myself I have to give myself a pat on the shoulder for the number of brain cells killed in the last few working hours of my Friday. And so, off we went to the Brazilian Buffet in town, paired with a glass each of Sauvignon Blanc.

I love good food. I am spoiled. This is what makes fasting difficult, not the hunger.

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Master cleansing day 1

The Lemonade Diet

Tthe recommended amount is 6 to 12 glasses a day of this lemonade recipe which provides 100 calories per serving due to the organic grade B maple syrup. You'll do this for 10 days. No other food is needed.

Recipe

2 tablespoons of Organic Grade B Maple Syrup
2 tables spoons of Organic lemon juice (Freshly Squeezed - About 1/2 a lemon)
One tenth ( 1/10 ) of a tea spoon of Cayenne pepper - Organic
a 10oz glass or clean filtered drinking water

You will drink it 6 to 12 times a day. Whenenver you feel hungry, make a glass.

Today is day 1!




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Situation in Bangkok - Holding on, holding on

We got back to Chiang Mai safe and sound before the flood moves into inner city. Bangkokians are getting prepared piling  sandbags along the front of buildings. Many shops are now closed and supplies in the remaining are running out. We heard from our contacts that bottled water is now very low on supply.

The tide is expected to rise over the weekend. This is a difficult time for folks in the affected areas, and of course the rest of Thailand (considering the loss of jobs, impact on tourism, inadequacy of supplied). I seriously think the situation has been made worse by the contradicting statements issued by the officials. To think that the flood in Chiang Mai was a month ago, it doesn't take much to expected the water up north to flow down to the central provinces.


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Civil society space in Singapore

I am partially convinced by PM Lee's call for an open approach for government and governance. The government has developed a reactive mechanism towards the call for transparency, but, what about civil society space and press freedom?

Dear Tourists, please get out of Bangkok

The flood situation is getting worse in Bangkok as the sluice gates are now opened to regulate the flow of water at the fully capacitated dams. Despite so, tourists are not putting off their travel plans. Seriously, what is wrong with those people? From what I know, some embassies are closing in preparation for the rise in water level. This is far more serious than the occupation of public areas by the red shirt/ yellow shirt, that deterred the arrival of Singaporean tourists, calling the country unsafe for travel. Ironically the protests were contained geographically with little impact on travel.
FYI some products are flying off the shelf even here in Chiang Mai. I was in the theater this afternoon and was informed that Pepsi and Sprite are now unavailable due to the flood. Supply of many products are low as it is logistically impossible to get them delivered across the nation. A country preparing to counter the flood situation definitely do not need additions to the population to be evacuated.

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Democractic Singapore?

On the other hand, Sembawang GRC MP Ellen Lee rejected Chen’s analogy, arguing that it was inappropriate to compare the PAP to Emperor Tai Zong as he was an autocratic ruler in a feudal era. She said, “We live in a modern, democratic society and the PAP believes in being responsible to the people. In a democracy, anyone has the right to speak.”
- http://sg.news.yahoo.com/chen%E2%80%99s-chinese-analogy-sparks-pap-debate.html

When did Singapore become a democractic society? (see World Audit Democracy)

About Media's social responsibility in Singapore and the disconnection with Overseas Singaporeans

I read with enthusiasm about a MP's recent comments on the quality of Mandarin dramas in Singapore.

Singapore is a small country with a very incompetitive media market and it should be time for the monopolistic players to see themselves as trend setters and channels for educating the public rather than mirroring and portraying the society in an often exaggerated fashion. There is a huge need to look beyond securing viewership and reducing the role of media to that of a profit driven enterprise. Media has its social responsibility.

I have been living away from home 4 years now and although I live in a part of the whole that doesn't use Mandarin at all, my command of the language did not deteriorate all thanks to my daily dosage of Taiwanese programmes that are made available conveniently by online websites. I am not sure if the day would come when I decide to switch to local programmes/dramas but I certainly would not like to if I am greeted by the ugliness of the Singaporean qualities, the very shallow usage of language and the uneducational and non-nutritious content. Programmes need to be stimulating and mind provoking, letting us learn something new, be it an idiom, a vocabulary, teach us terms that we are familiar of only in English and tell us what they translate to in Mandarin, etc. Singaporean programmes are guilty of not doing that.

And for your information, local TV programmes are not available on xinmsn to overseas viewers anyway. And this is so much for the government's call to connect overseas Singaporeans. Given the number of Singaporean overseas, it is time for the OS portal to rethink their role. I do not need to receive mails that consolidate information that I can get as long as I am IT literate and read the Singapore news everyday. Connecting Singaporeans require infrastructure that we currently do not have and need to build. Having one event per year and hoping that the patriotism stays is a joke. The OS portal is a mean that would probably of higher interest to students abroad who need contacts for socialising. For adults who care about things happening in their country (e.g. voting rights for Overseas Singaporeans) and would like to contribute a wee bit, may I ask where the channel is? What are the policies that support Singaporeans abroad (housing? citizenship?)? Is the policy on single citizenship still relevant today?

Do more, speak less.

Need a recharge

This week is a rare week that I am looking forward to Friday with extreme impatience, probably attributed by the lack of well-rested time off over the last weekend: missed my weekly massage, spent hours of my precious weekend in the salon, etc. This was made worse by the lost of sleep last night.

I need my weekend badly!

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About hair and mum

Sitting on the salon chair, what'sapp-ing MM on a very feminine subject of discussion and I recall how much time I have spent with the two ladies in my family at the salon.

My mum used to lug me and my Sis along while she spent hours at the salon. Unlike my Sis, I was the unlucky one, plagued with bad hair and a mum who was a control freak over how my hair should look, i.e. Short paired with a ridiculous looking fringe. I cannot remember how many times I went running into the toilet crying, spending a long time in it with my hands giving my fringe tight pulls. Seriously, visits to the salon with my mum had been a nightmare.

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Chiang Mai underwater

This was what happened in my life last week.

The railway track under water

Our office ended the week early on Wednesday, leaving those unaffected by flood with extended time off. Now as everything goes back into normalcy, the Thais while on guard are still wearing their "mai pen rai" attitude. It is as though the flood was a natural catastrophe that we can blame no one for but the bad weather. The scattered rain could not be the cause, the Government agencies' slow response was. As the water level in the river falls below the crisis alert level, everything seems to be restored. No one's asking what happened to the broken dam and no one's questioning the lack of reinforcement at the river. As usual, the Thais goes amnesic as they to the tune of Beatles' "Let it be" in chorus

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