Recycling, Vegetarianism

I joined Tzu Chi approximately 3 months ago after the divorce, with the hope of getting new acquaintances and hopefully be a better person. Well, three months have passed, and I'm still the same but I've gathered enough courage to participate in a couple of their activities despite being linguistically handicapped. You see, I can't speak their lingo - Mandarin, but some are able to speak English. Ya la, I'm a "banana man" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside... in short, a Chinese who speaks only English.

Their latest activity was the recycling and vegetarianism campaign held on the eve of Wesak Day. I was stationed in one of the locations in town. I was there with my colleague at about 6 p.m. Here are some photos:

The seniors arrived early to set up the station

Briefing. The ones in grey are generally juniors.

The recycle boxes. Later more boxes were brought in.

Promoting vegetarianism

Our stuff had to be hidden from public view. 
It looks neat too.

The public buying some organic stuff

A member of the public pledging to be a vegan
for a certain duration.

A prayer before you leave

Time to clean up the mess

So, am I a vegan? The answer is NO (not yet) - it's good to be 100% vegan but I just wonder what would happen if there are just too many animals on this planet because all of us have become vegetarians? But I will definitely consume lesser meat from now on, for health reasons too.

Perhaps one day in the future, I'll not eat anymore meat.

Break? What break?

The final exam's over, and I get a two-week break. "Hooray!" - but not just yet. It is indeed a fallacy to believe that the management would allow my colleagues and I have a nice vacation in the Bahamas till the new trimester opens. Fat chance, people. If I'm lucky, I might be left alone for a day or two to do my personal stuff (in the office), but that's about it.

There are workshops, meetings and conferences to attend, researches to be done, planning for the new trimester and some other administrative duties. Don't forget that in the academic line, I've to mark my own answer scripts or help others to mark them. On top of that, break time is also the time when I've to run errands rather than sitting home watching TV with a cup of hot chocolate in hand, or just hanging out in the nearest shopping mall.

Before I could even wink, it's time to say hi to the new kids already! So, people... a break is just a break from teaching. I'm not entitled to be away from office at all unless I apply for annual, medical or emergency leave. If there's an urgent meeting, the management has the right to call me back to work. "I'm on leave today" is no excuse for not attending a meeting. My former head of department once warned us: "Your leave is only a privilege, not your right." - the message is loud and clear.

So, it's not really a clean break. I've heard with my own ears people say things like: "Teaching is good. You get a lot of holidays, very relaxed, easy - just go and teach, come home." - decades ago, they may be right, but not nowadays.

Thank goodness I still have my weekends.

What I Did Today

Well, I don't often get to wake up late - lazy me - so today, I woke up at 8:45 AM. Yeah, I know there are many record holders out there who wake up beyond 10:00 AM on a weekend. :-)

Had breakfast. Usually I'd stay on at my parents' home on weekends and then go straight to work on Monday morning. Today, I decided to go home for a while to do my laundry and then mop the floor. Yup, that's a 20-minute drive to do both.

Mopping came first. Midway, I sweat like crazy - that's 3 days in a row. You know the feeling of water drenching your body; you could actually feel beads of water flowing along your body as you work! Then came laundry. There were only a few pieces of clothes to wash but I didn't want the house to smell of dirty clothes. So, in the washing machine they went. I watched TV while waiting for the machine to beep. After the beep, I dried them upstairs. It was darn tiring...

And now I'm back at my parents' home. I'm gonna nap now. HELP WANTED! A wife who will not be treated like a slave but a human being. Prior experience is not necessary but ability to assist in household chores is a must. Good culinary skills is an added advantage but not mandatory. Preferred qualities include loving, caring and independent of parents. If you're interested, please leave a message. ... hahaha.

Don't take me too seriously OK? But the chores were real.

My Wesak Day

Firstly, Happy Wesak Day to all. I'm not gonna post about this festival; you can get that info from my Blog to Learn. This post is more about what I did on this holy day.

As with previous years, I went to the Seck Kia Eenh (SKE) temple in the morning with dad. The first we did was we joined other devotees along the streets to take part in the "pindapata", or offering of alms to the monks. This act is considered very meritorious. Here are some pictures:

Donating and getting the rice for the monks

The head monk leads. Devotees kneel with rice to be placed into his bowl.

There were 10 monks carrying silver bowls. We had to make sure there's enough rice for each monk. The last monk almost always gets the most - lucky fella :-) I didn't hear them say thank you, but I guess they did in the Pali language and in their hearts. Maybe I was too excited to hear them say it!

Immediately after this, dad and I walked back to the temple under the scorching morning sun. There, we waited for the monks to return and receive alms from the rest of the devotees. I'll try upload the video clip a little later.

The night before, there was a procession. I was there with the Tzu Chi organisation (more on this in another post). There were floats - you can see some photos of the procession in Blog to Learn too. I've never been this close in a procession. This time, for once, it was well worth the wait...

The head monk on a float blessing everyone with holy water.
No, Shell didn't sponsor the monks or the float :-)

We were allowed to approach one particular float as closely as we could. When this float arrived, it stopped, and showers of blessing were sprinkled on our heads. No, this act doesn't cleanse our sins; it's a symbol that we've been blessed and hopefully we will be better people with such blessings.

 

It was a very sweaty day for me. I don't know how much water in my body was used up as a result of the terrible heat. It was the same the previous night, too.

 

I Wanna Watch Toy Story 3

OK, I've to admit that I'm a fan of not only sci-fi movies but also animated ones. I'm just so mesmerised by what technology could do in movies nowadays. I've watched Antz, Cars and Monsters Inc. I've also watched Toy Story 1 and 2. Guess what?

Toy Story 3 is coming, and it's gonna be in 3-D!!! I didn't get a chance to watch Avatar in 3D, so this time, when it comes to Malacca, I make sure I get a pair of 3D glasses. You're gonna see new toys in the movie. My favourite new toy would be Latso, a cool pinky bear on a walking stick. Nah, I'm not gonna buy one of those toys... err, on second thought, maybe I might put the toys in my car as ornaments.

Am I a kid? Not really... but all of us have a child, parent and adult in us. So, don't you dare claim that you're an adult, and therefore you don't behave like a kid. You do, it's just that you don't realise it - some of us are more kiddy than others :-)

So, anyone wanna watch Toy Story 3 in 3D with me? Raise your hands! Watch the TEASER trailer here (please silent the background music before you watch it). Enjoy!

Today...

The final exams are over, and I've already entered all marks into the computerised system. I believe there aren't any mistakes as I've double-checked. Over here, there is NO ROOM for error when it comes to exams. OK, that's done.

I've another 10 days of break before the new trimester begins. I'm supposed to go to Sabah this weekend but my friend is too busy, so maybe next year. The entire corridor now has been deserted for days as staff have taken leave. I still have some stuff to settle. Once that's done, I'll see if there's a need to take leave.

AFTER LUNCH:

Filing for the ISO:9001 is complete. What a waste of papers, and we're supposed to have the Go Green culture. Had a good lunch with the same colleagues I went out with yesterday. On normal class days, we go our separate ways, so there's no chance of eating together. Then I did some window shopping while waiting for the others to buy something from Parkson. Yeah, I enjoy window shopping occasionally - not too long though. I'm now back at the office after lunch, waiting for time to go home.

"Oh, your life is so easy going" you may think... yeah, for now. If it's so darn good, then everyone with the same qualification would want to be where I am now. Nevertheless, it's better than in some other organisations. I can't deny that.

Happy Birthday Mom (Part 2)

As promised, here's the post on my mom's birthday celebration. We had to celebrate her 70th birthday a day later to accommodate those who are not from town. I had two surprises for my mom. First, I got her a flower-cum-fruit basket, specially ordered from a florist to be delivered on the day of her birthday. I've never done this before, and she never expected her rebellious and stubborn son to do something this noble. I figured, she's been there for me from the time I got the divorce (especially) till now, and she's been suffering emotionally too. Therefore, I did what was right. I made that choice to make her happy on her birthday - and she was happy to receive it.

Flowers and fruit for mom

Meaningful words carefully chosen

Here's the second surprise. My siblings and I wanted something special. What I did was I tried to insist that all her sisters come for this celebration to give her a surprise. Well, only one could make it as the others had to be away that day. To fill the void, I included other relatives from KL and Seremban. They came just before dinner. There were a few exchanges of phone calls between me and my aunt to ensure they arrived before my mom did. It went well. I didn't want to have it at a hotel - that's too common, so I made reservation for 14 pax at a bistro instead.

The Chosen One - good ambience

The birthday girl finally arrived at about 7:15 PM, and was so surprised to see her sister and relatives there. There were hugs and greetings. It was nice :)

Arrival of the birthday girl, hugging her youngest sister.
It was a big surprise for her.

I also instructed my brother to get her a birthday cake a couple of hours earlier.  Gosh, I almost forgot about it as my mind hasn't been stable lately with work and other personal stuff to think of. My brother got a cake and I told him to get seven candles to represent her age.

The Food

We ordered ala carte, so it took a while for all of us to decide what to order, but I agreed to have the chef's recommendation (below) for all of us:

House Specialty
Seafood Platter: lobster, oysters, slices of salmon etc.

There was plenty of food in the end till we filled ourselves to the brim, but there was wastage too because I "cleverly" ordered two seafood platters; I didn't expect the others to order heavy meals too. Never mind, as long as everyone's happy there.

The Atmosphere

One word sums it all: electrifying. Everyone was chatting and playing with my little nephew, and I was busy taking photos and experimenting with my camera (missing some good shots in the process). The waiter was helpful too, and he helped us take a snapshot of the entire group.

I call this eating to order - let's eat!

The in-house entertainer singing the Happy Birthday song
That's a surprise to me too as I didn't ask for it :-)

The whole gang - all 14 of us
(I'm somewhere there)

The Verdict

It was a first for me organising a birthday event almost all on my own from making the reservation to making sure that guests arrived before my mom did. Credit goes to my brother too for reminding me a few things and helping out a bit. I'm glad it turned out well. Food was abundant, but not everyone liked the taste. A bowl of "laksa" was wasted. My heart sank a bit when I saw wasted food. Either the guests had a very small appetite, were too picky or the food was just not up to the mark. All guests went home after dinner including those who came from out of town. The price? That doesn't matter. What matters most is that mom had a great time.

Let's see what we have in store for my parents next year.