Funny Kisses

Again, I apologise for this long inactivity. Just consider me hibernating due to lack of ideas (instead of food) all this while.

Owh, come on! Don't go on labelling me as uneducated (if you will, read my post on 'Misjudging People') just because I am posting about 'kisses'. One of my (best) friends gave me idea about writing 'disgusting' stuff that could happen when people kiss. I decided that putting the word 'disgusting' in the title is the best way to fend my readers off this post, if not my entire blog.

I will make it super clear that I am not experienced in what I am about to write. Now, ready to chuckle?  Read down:

1. Guy sneezes into the girl's mouth when they are kissing. If you are not laughing hard enough, it means you are not imagining it hard enough.
2. Guy smiles before he kisses the girl, and the girl saw parsley stuck in between his teeth. Laughing now?
3. Guy is too excited to kiss the girl and accidentally farted. Boom!!! Indeed, the power of love is sometimes stronger than the nuke.
4. Guy burps when he is kissing the girl, and the girl could 'taste' the guy's breakfast. I know, yucks!
5. I found this from a website: Guy charges the girl with his tongue sticking out (like a frog).
6. Guy inserts his tongue too deeply into the girl's mouth when their lips touched. His tongue prevented oxygen entry and the girl is gasping for air. 

I will stop here. You know, I am laughing like a mad man when I am writing this. Insanity got me! 

Observing Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day! I know, I know, it's been quite a while since I last updated my blog. So for those who are regulars here (and always support my posts, either by believing in what I believe or giving me a lot of 'Likes'), I apologise.

Now, the story. As you all know (for those who don't, now you do), I am single and available. Naturally, I do not have a lover to spend this year's Valentine's Day with (and next year's, and the year after next's, I am quite sure). So, I took on the job to observe how people around me celebrate this adorable day.

Nah, you definitely would have guessed this, but I will just say what I saw. Lovers had their arms locked together. If the girls (no offence, as usual!) had worn police uniform, I would have really believed that they were indeed fierce policewomen chasing after bandits. I mean, the arm-locking they performed was such that the boys will have zero chance of escaping. But of course, the girls all had their best smiles carved on their faces.

I don't know about you, but I nearly vomited when I saw a boy (definitely a boy!) helping to wipe the bread crumbs off his girlfriend's lips (at Kenny Rogers). Maybe because I have never fallen in love with somebody before, but that incident really got me covered in gooseflesh (I am not exaggerating!).

The air smelled of money, money and ... just money. Old and young, regardless of their genders, spent like armageddon has arrived. Some flash their cards, some flash their purple notes (for those of you who are not Malaysian, our RM 100 note is purple in colour. Note that RM 100 = USD 32.362 @ February 14, 2013, 7.30 PM UTC +08:00). I am sure some of them spent beyond their limits.

Well, to be frank with you, I was starting to get sick of the whole Valentine's Day thingy until I saw an adorable couple with adorable clothes on. The boy wore a black tee with 'I LOVE HER' written on it while the girl wore a matching tee with 'I LOVE HIM' on it. That shy couple didn't walk hand in hand. They were, as I can see, quite conservative. I can't help but wish them a sincere Happy Valentine's Day.

Now, how did you spend yours?

PEACE ☮

It is disheartening to know that mankind failed to learn something from the two previous world wars. No matter how we look at it, someone is trying hard to trigger WW III with all the online attacks, verbal fights, weaponed battles etc. It seems that 'PEACE' is a word which is only allowed to appear in dictionaries, and not in real life.

ONLINE ATTACKS

We very often come across news of hackers breaking into various systems to steal vital information. Some of them steal information from government systems all around the world. This shows that these hackers (of course, I am only talking about those with bad intentions, I am fully aware that there are many hackers who hack for the 'greater good') have no respect towards people's privacy. This clearly jeopardises global peace, as the attacked countries tend to point their fingers towards other countries. Everyone suspects everyone else...

VERBAL FIGHTS

This usually happens everywhere and anytime, in the bazaar, during a traffic congestion, during a tournament, you name it. But bear in mind that hurting someone with brutal words is a terrible action. People often say that the pen is mightier than the sword, well I prefer, the tongue is more lethal than the nuke. 

WEAPONED BATTLES

Hmm... you can call me a coward but I do not dare to pinpoint anyone here. But I guess you will have no trouble to understand what I am talking about. You see, in the past decade, not many countries got into war, and you get the idea...

So, why all the bleeding? Why can't someone do something about it? The answer, I think, everyone knows it already. Everyone has to play his or her part to promote peace. I know, I know, it's always easier said than done.

HEAL THE WEAL

People make mistakes. It is natural. But the important thing that decides the future is whether or not they are willing to admit and apologise for their wrongdoings. It is hard to ask for forgiveness, but to be honest, the feeling of relief that follows after that is so sweet...

ZEAL FOR LEAL

No man is an island (except if you are Robinson Crusoe, that is). To achieve peace and prosperity really requires everyone working hand in hand. Unfortunately, many people are still very self-centred. They do not deem helping people a necessary action, some even find giving other people a Judas kiss enjoyable. But what was the idiom? Do unto others as you would have they do unto you. Lend a hand to others when they need you, and you will find them to be at your side when it is your turn to ask for help. Everyone has to have the passion to uphold loyalty towards other people. Let betrayal be thrown down the deepest abyss.

SEAL THE DEAL

When all of the above are done, I would like to invite you to read the happy ending in the last chapter of humanity. I think it goes, "And mankind lived happily ever after..."

TEENAGERS, challenges

So, here I am. A teenager with my one foot stepping into the realm of adulthood and the other foot reluctantly following.

- Eric Egong @ ericegong.blogspot.com -

I attached the source of the beautiful quote above, otherwise my brother might kill me (for plagiarising his idea). Anyway, today, I would like to share a little bit about challenges that come our (teenagers') way. 

When I was young, I sometimes witnessed my elder brother having occasional emotional tantrums. Now that I am a teenager myself (now approaching the finish line, I am going to be an adult, soon), I behaved exactly the same way as he did. If you ask me, I don't know why. In fact, ask any teenager, and you can expect a long eerie silence after that. We teenagers are just emotionally unstable (very, very). 

It seems like teenage life marks the start of a bloody battle against a string of unending challenges. Homework, school activities, chores... these are just small players on the battlefield. The big players, or fighters, are usually those that float to us without a physical body. For instance, failure. People have the saying 'failure is the mother of success' dangling from the edge of their lips (sometimes stuck in between their teeth), but do you think it is easy for us? Do you think that we, who are emotionally rocky, can say, "Hey, I failed. I am so glad, it means I will succeed soon. Failure is the mother of success. Blah blah blah..."

Failure is like a big slap on our cheek, and when combined with a sudden unpredictable low mood, they can spell death (that's why sometimes we come across news of students committing suicide after scoring low marks in exams etc.). How to fight this warrior? I really don't know. 

Next, seeking one's own identity is also a big challenge faced by any teenager. Of course I know my name, but as a teenager, I sometimes question my own existence, I sometimes deem my life as an unworthy pawn in a destined chess game. When I come to my senses, I get terrified. I just do. And I feel even worse if I happened to cause troubles. It's not like I want to create troubles, I am not even aware of creating one, until I get an earful from adults.

Yes, challenges are planted all along the path we take... but it seems the first few that we face during teen age are the hardest of them all...

Ushering in CNY 2013

I went shopping with my family just this morning in another town approximately 80 km from ours, not to prep for the coming Chinese New Year (since my family will not be inviting anyone to our house, we are going on a vacation~), but to escape from the hustle and bustle of our own town (only to get ourselves caught in the flooding crowd when we arrived in our neighbouring town) and to purchase new toys for my cute little poodle.

Obviously, the crowd was shopping to get ready for the celebration of the coming Chinese New Year. As a keen observer (DO NOT LAUGH!), I took the opportunity to scan through the people around me to see just how colourful our world is. Along the process, I discovered some funny stories:

• Mummy wanted to buy some new shirts, she picked a couple of them and went to the fitting room. As usual, I obediently followed her to wait in front of the fitting room (she will always open the door when she is done with putting on the garments she picked to ask me whether she looks OK in them, which means she trusts me more than she does the mirror). A girl came out from the neighbouring room and asked her boyfriend if she looked pretty in the miniskirt she put on, to which he answered, "Yes, you are." She took a long moment staring herself in the mirror (from the outside) and said, "No, I think it's too long." What?, I thought. Her boyfriend, like me, found her statement incomprehensible and replied, "Why do want anything shorter than this?" Her answer was equally ridiculous to her first statement, "I look cuter in very short miniskirts." If you ask me, I would say what she put on wasn't a miniskirt, it was so short that you can call it a belt!
• We went to a computer shop, mummy wanted to buy a new CPU to replace the old one at home. We overheard a conversation between two unoccupied saleswomen who were standing at the counter. Let's call them A and B. A said, "I had diarrhoea this morning," to which B replied, "Really? Mine was so hard that I had to sit in the bathroom for nearly ten minutes." I don't know how your expression looks like when you read this, but for us (daddy, mummy and I), we were completely stunned and stupefied, not knowing how to react. This episode ended with the salesman serving us approaching them to shut them up. Naturally, mummy didn't get to buy a new CPU, guess she needs to bear with the old one for a few more weeks, then.
• I was at the counter to pay for a few pairs of socks I bought. The lady in front of me had her bill paid and started to fumble coins from her bag, lots of them. The cashier was frowning at her mysterious action and asked her what she was doing. The lady replied, "Can I change these coins for a piece of RM50 note (now you can imagine just how much coins she brought)?" The cashier, no doubt, denied her requests, politely. 
• This happened at a restaurant. We were enjoying our lunch when the waitress brought one more dish to our table. We were sure we didn't order it and so we told her to take it away. She did, but after a few minutes, she came back (with the dish, still piping hot), and told us that she accidentally recorded the dish when she was taking our order and asked if we could finish it (obviously, so that she didn't have to be scolded). Well, she got a good lecture from daddy. 

'Colourful', isn't it? People tend to lose their rationality at some point (especially when they are under pressure to prepare for festivals, in this case, the Chinese New Year), but definitely, these are too much!

As the countdown continues, we are destined (and blessed) to witness even more bizarre incidents...

(Mis)Judging People

One of my friends often posts on Facebook about how people who like to judge others seem repugnant to her. I see eye to eye with her. No one's perfect, so why all the fuss? I especially nurtured a distaste for people who like to spew out their bold views about others without even checking themselves in the mirror (Well, it sounds like I am judging people here, too, but I hope this post will help kickstart the 'Judgement Day' of this foolish trend).

Comments like "She's ugly!", "He's a fatso," are some of the common ones we hear in everyday gossips. Ponder! Is everyone born physically beautiful, or perfect? No, no, NO! And this variance is what makes life colourful! Imagine if you walk down a boulevard and see people with similar heights, similar waist sizes and similar supposedly beautiful or handsome faces. Wouldn't it be boring?

We can also see very impolite comments on many television programmes (I usually see these on Korean channels, like 'Entertainment Weekly', I don't know, but it seems normal to them. Absolutely, no offence!), "Wow, she's sexy!", "Hey, he's so hot!"... let's just be frank, these comments make the subjects look cheap, like their lives depend on physical appearance alone! From my view, honestly, these subjects become a tool to arouse some people's dirty desires (you can see this clearly in K-POP, when girl groups wear very short skirts and dance, try to look at the gazes of the male fans).

Of course, regarding the 'fatso' thingy, I am not trying to say that people now don't have to worry about being fat and can eat as much as they like. It is of utmost importance for them (and me, I admit I am a corpulent guy) to stay healthy, by practising proper eating habits. But sometimes, gene plays a role in deciding the body shape (for instance, some people become plump more easily than other people even though they eat less, due to gene). So stop being so judgemental, people!

Everyone has his or her own story. You can't imagine (or maybe you can, if you are a victim) how it feels to become targeted by malicious comments. It really hurts! People sommer vomit fatal remarks without thinking of the consequences. A teacher once told me that hurting people verbally is worse than hurting them physically, for physical wounds can be treated but mental and emotional wounds will leave eternal scars on the victims' minds. Indeed!

Therefore, why not change? Why not look at people from the good side? Why not work together to forge a happy and worry-free tomorrow? Why not we bring an end to this hurtful culture?

Learning ENGLISH

Nah, I am not trying to teach English here (you can count the vocab I master with your fingers, and toes). But I can tell you honestly that I have fallen deeply in love with English (the language, don't cook up a speculation that I have an English girlfriend). I must thank my English teacher who taught me when I was still in Form 1 (you can see who she is in my post 'Dine, Converse', she was the special guest). She didn't just teach me English, she taught me how to learn English. She catalysed the germination of my love towards this international language.

If you (juniors) think that you can learn everything from your English textbook, then you are terribly wrong. English is everywhere (if you care to dedicate some time to it).

Me? My first English 'sharpener' wasn't Hans Christian Anderson's work (I already knew his stories in the Chinese version), it was the Reader's Digest magazines. My brother is fond of reading them and one day, I picked up one of them. I browsed through the pages and found that I could hardly finish any paragraph without asking him the meanings of the unfamiliar words. I guessed he was tired of my constant pestering since he then taught me how to use the dictionary.That little incident kickstarted my curiosity about English.

There are many ways for me to learn English:

• Whenever I come across new words, I refer to the Qur'an of English, i.e. the dictionary. Sometimes, when I feel lazy to scan through that big pile of papers to find the words I don't know, I make sure to note those words down so that when I regain my spirit, I will know where to start from. 
• Songs! It is of no use to only know how to write in English, it is equally vital to be able to listen when other people speak. So, I make it a habit to visit YouTube and listen to some English songs, then I will write down the lyrics and check with the actual lyrics when I am done to see if I get them right.
• Write, write, write. That's why I blog. It's to make sure I don't forget what I've learnt. When I was still in school (during which time I didn't have the time to blog), I write on pieces of paper. I sommer came up with topics and tried to elaborate from scratch.

I bet I am still very, very, very far from mastering English. But I'm not worried. After all, non scholae, sed vitae discimus.

Consumer is KING

Well, is it? I have doubt. I have seen a great many salesmen and saleswomen 'decorating' their faces with sour and sombre expressions (it's not like I owe them money, or anything!). I thought each and every consumer deserves the best of products and services, no?

Let's put products aside. I have too many complaints about the services I have been receiving so far. I can still remember there was once when my mum and I were having breakfast in a café, that fool of  a waitress shouted at my mum, "RM 9!" At first, we thought that she was worried that we might not pay (since there were too many people and someone might try slip away anytime) and let it slide. But when she returned to pass us the change, she literally threw it in front of us (and got a good shout from my mum, served her right!). Ever since then, we have not visited that café.

Supermarkets also hold a lot of people deserving reprimands. The very incident that got me throwing the goods I was carrying at the cashier was when she yelled at me and asked me to push the trolley back to where it was from (it was other people's trolley, I carried a basket). I did not pay, nor did I reclaimed the groceries I threw at her.

Now, the entrée, an incident that happened in a hut (you should be able to guess this) that sells pizza. My family invited my mother's friend's family for a lunch at that hut. First, the waitress took our orders (she did not record anything down), and got them wrong, we bore with it. Next, when I ordered some ice cubes, she said, "Sorry, we don't have anymore ice cubes." Hahaha (a sarcastic laugh)! No more ice cubes in that hut that sells pizza? I swallowed my lunch with my fists clenched.

Are consumers king? You tell me.

LEADER

Leaders must be close [sic] enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. 

- John C. Maxwell - 

I had seen people acting as leaders in my secondary school days and I had been led by some of them. Ah, I admit that I am not qualified (at all) to judge these people. But honestly, not many of them had the so-called 'leadership' aura (or halo), meaning, they were not able to convince people (maybe just me) that they were able leaders.

So, what does it take to be a good leader (not that I am a good leader, though)? Read down...

Lonely - Leaders are meant to be lonely. If they were given the title of 'leader', they shouldn't go around telling people their personal troubles. They keep those problems to themselves to avoid affecting the morale of the people they are leading. Sometimes, it is good to hide...

Esteemed - I am not saying that they should be arrogant, but leaders should nurture high self-esteem. Why? It gives the followers a sense of confidence. When they are confident, they can focus more on the work at hand, instead of worrying about how people look at them.

Affable - I doubt anyone wants a leader with a stern face (or they call it more Stalin than Santa) 24/7. Leaders should be friendly and easy to talk to. This ensures loyalty of the followers. Besides, affable leaders can grow into better leaders since they can easily listen to people's opinions, granting them the ability to be empathetic.

Dree - Yup, leaders are destined to dree more pain than any other people. They have to listen to criticisms, reprimands and chastisements (even if they had done nothing wrong). People tend to expect more from a leader... so they have to dree to survive.

En face - There is no time for leaders to look back to their past and say, "Oh, I should have done this, I should have done that..." It's all about the future. They learn from their mistakes (and be grateful that they have made those mistakes) and forge a better future together with their subordinates.

Responsible - Of course, leaders have to be responsible. They have to be held accountable for their followers' fate (since the followers do as the leaders say) and future. They have to bear in mind that their actions decide how tomorrow looks like.

Voila! These are some of the qualities a leader should have (of course the actual list goes beyond this acronym). Build your leadership skills around these qualities and you will find yourself noted down in everyone's white list.

Building A Website

Many people choose to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website editing programmes to build their websites. However, I chose to do some coding with a free HTML editor. It turned out to be much harder than I had expected.

I am quite familiar with HTML (hypertext markup language), I learnt it when I was still 14 years old. This language allows users to manipulate (position, size, colour and font of) web elements. The reason I chose to build a website is to move all my blog posts on Blogger there.

Blogger does not give me the full power to customise the appearance of my blog. So, what to do? I have to move, but not so fast, I am far from done...

This editor is called the 'Taco HTML Editor'. Need to code from scratch.

Before I could concentrate on coding, I need to design a few simple graphics as menu buttons. Since I don't have advanced applications like Adobe Photoshop installed, I turned to a presentation programme, it's called Keynote (Keynote is very much like Microsoft PowerPoint, only that it is designed by Apple, for Apple customers).

These are icons. I designed them to be as simple as possible. I used basic shapes and combined them to form the desired icons, for instance, the 'Pics' icon below:

For this icon, I only used four rectangles and two triangles. The typography beside it features small-lettered words to give people a sense of informality.

Each menu button has three different images. I enabled rollover images so that they look more alive. When you move your cursor over them, they will change into their corresponding second image. After that, I saved each of these as .PNG images. Then, I uploaded them to my domain so that my HTML editor can fetch them as web images when I start coding.

Time to code. First, I included the address of each of these pictures in my code. This allows the browser you are using right now (Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox or Opera) to fetch these images and portray them they way I want. I placed all of these menu buttons at the top of the page for easier navigation for my readers later.

Next, I designed the background. The background isn't just an image. Since I want the background colour to match that of my icons, I need to find the perfect code for the colour I used. 

It isn't simple to find the correct colour. I need to do some Wikipedia readings to get the colour right. Before I go on, I feel the need to explain to you about these colour codes, or else, you will lose interest of reading the remaining post due to incomprehensibility. 

Each pixel (meaning the dots on your screen, if you take a closer look at your computer screen right now, you will see tiny dots) is made up of three colours (red, green and blue). The combination of these colours at different brightness gives you different colours. If you turn on each colour to their full brightness (#FFFFFF, each two letters determine the brightness of that particular colour in the arrangement I mentioned), you see white colour. If you turn off all of them (#000000), you get black colour and so on. 

I used half a day to find the correct colour. I added some attributes at the bottom of the page and that's where I am right now, I am still working to come up with the rest of the page. You can see a big pile of codes below only results in a small outcome in the real website.

That's all for now. I will continue to post about my progress in the future. Do come back!

Chase - Chapter 2 (Part I)

She couldn’t shut her eyes. She was still afraid. Why, she thought. She was once one of the readers of John Foster’s cases in newspapers. She critisised the man’s inhuman action, slaughtering men as if they were animals. But a few hours ago, he proved to her that she was wrong. She couldn’t forget his eyes, his gaze. She could not help but hoped that he would not be captured. No, she would not tell her mother. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feeling. Let her sorrow be hidden in her heart, she vowed to herself to bring that secret to her grave. She would not tell anyone. Soon, the rain ceased and the golden rays of the great fire ball bathed her room and the town, marking the arrival of another day, and the arrival of a true mastermind.

“Wake up,” Mike shook Carl violently. The 26-year-old opened his eyes slowly. “We should go around the town to hunt down our man.”

“He might have boarded the ferry yesterday, and left,” Carl said, trying hard to roll to his side, with his back against his senior.

“Don’t be so naive. The ferry was not permitted to leave yesterday. He can’t escape,” Mike replied, his hands were busy buttoning up his jacket. Carl got ready and joined his senior in the cafe they visited yesterday for breakfast. They had an American set. Carl and Mike were temporarily freed from work-stress thanks to the view of the scenic sea from their table. Just then, small boats started to appear along the horizon, about half a dozen of them. They seemed to enlarge every now and then, indicating that they were actually approaching the shore. 

When the boats finally arrived, the detective duo could see that the passengers were police officers. “Definitely aid from headquarters. Yup, they are,” Mike said slowly, and stood up, leaving an empty plate and his junior behind. “I will go to the station first. You can catch up later.” With that note, he flew out through the door. Carl hastily finished his last spoonful of baked beans, left some money on the table and picked up Mike’s trail.

When Carl finally reached the station, he saw some familiar faces among the crowd congregating in Chief Albert’s office. “Lee, Stephen, Kevin! What are you guys doing here? I thought you are still working on the Internet fraud case,” Carl asked his colleagues. 

“The higher-ups have decided to assign more manpower to this case. We had to pull some men from the HQ, this pack volunteered,” the chief answered, on behalf of the sea-sickened trio. “They are going to join you. Since they are your colleagues, I trust there will be no problem in collaboration.” He stood up, “The others will help to trace our man on the field. Let’s go!” 

It took a whole minute for the remaining 16 people to exit the small office, following Chief Albert to the crime scene for follow-up investigations. Mike was the first to break the silence among the five people remaining in the office. “We will move to Room 4. Our documents are there,” he said and led his juniors into a shabby-looking room, with which the four corners of its walls were at the mercy of spider webs. 

CHASE © David Egong 2012. All rights reserved. Check back every two weeks for subsequent chapters or parts.

Of Soil, Water and Sun

A simple analogy: I am a small plant with few small, photosynthetic leaves. Germinated from a seed planted into the soil, I get plenty of water from the rain and surrounding moisture. Most importantly, I get sufficient sunlight 12 hours daily. All of these factors contributed to my growth and development.

Hmm... I am not trying to teach anyone Biology here. This is a perfect introduction to illustrate the people around me. 

The soil represents my family, water represents my teachers and the sun, my friends.  My family nurtures me with nutrients (which means feed) and support (moral, financial, you name it). They are always by my side, through thick and thin. They give me the love that I need and the warmth that I yearn for. And they never ask anything in return, just like the soil, staying low at the root of a plant. I love them, and I can't imagine how I can ever live without them (don't bring up things like hydroponics and aeroponics, I am getting really emotional here, don't start!).

My teachers are like water. They pour valuable knowledge at me (thanks!). Sometimes, they reprimand me (for my own good), just like how the rain will occasionally tear the leaves of a plant apart. But I know they care for me, I know they have my best interests in mind. They guide me and shape me into who I am today. 

My friends are like the sun. They cheer me up, bringing endless joy into my life, though at times, we get into arguments (you can say that a plant will suffer a great deal when the sun becomes mercilessly hotter than usual). Ah... it's great to have them in my life!

Endless guidance from them brought me up. Now, I am ready to stand in storms' way. Thank you, Soil, Water and Sun...

A Bond Built On Conversations

Ehr... please do not misunderstand me. I know the title sounds like I met someone through a chatting website. She is a good friend of mine. I never knew her until I was in Form 4 (I am not going to say how I came to know her). She is from another class. We seldom meet each other.

But we got involved in the same co-curricular activity (no, I refuse to tell you what activity it was). Through conversations, I came to discover more about her views and thoughts (important for me to judge a person, I don't judge a book by its cover). She is (now, still) gentle, kind and has low self-esteem. She does not know how valuable a friend she is to me and some of my other friends.

She was (back to past tense) always there to support us (my friends and I), quietly. She did not stand in the limelight, but rather, she operated the limelight, so that it shone on her friends. There were times when I disagreed with her opinions, but that was what got me thinking more than I did.

We also found ourselves competing against each other sometimes. I felt fun and motivated to be with her. She pushed me beyond my limits to make me a better person (unintentionally).

I often tease her (I just did it on Facebook) but deep in my heart, I respect her, a lot. I am not sure if she could feel my respect, probably not, since I am good at hiding things (but I usually forget where I hid them). I am not going to name her, but I am going to give her a sign here, maybe she will know that I am talking about her. ~Sb~, got it?

Carbon Footprint

All of us contribute to the emission of carbon dioxide. Let's see what is your score. Enter your details into the calculator below to find out how great a damage you are causing to our Mother Nature:

When I feel down...

There are times when I feel down. The feeling sometimes grows into a monster called 'rage' when I come into contact with people 'equipped' with sour faces. I am still a teen and I am still struggling to escape the maze of mood swings I am trapped in. For no reason, I can suddenly become angry and violent. Guess some of you are like me, too.

That is when I go seek for calmness, in my memories. I have come across people from all walks of life, some of which I share sweet memories with, and places of all altitudes and areas. I do record many of my memories in my photos and when mood swings strike, I reach for them.

Those photos help me to recall all the happy past I possess. Pictures of my family and I, friends and I, natural scenes and sites, historic places and food. Browsing through all those photos help me to retrace my route, and in an instant, I could fly into my imagined space (suddenly thought of the song lyrics: You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one), reminiscing the scents, sounds and ambients of places I have been to and people I have met.

Trip to Taiwan (2009). One of my sweet memories.

Ah, those memories. I won't say I wish to go back to those time, or else I will need to go through my hectic secondary school life again!

By the time I reach the end of my albums, I could feel tranquility filling my soul. Now, what do you do when you feel down?