What A True Patriot!

31 January, 2006

PRINCE Harry could be fighting Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan by the summer. The 21-year-old prince will join the Blues and Royals when he finishes his officer training at Sandhurst in April. A Clarence House source said last night: "Harry is determined to go to Afghanistan. He knows that a squadron from his new regiment is going to fight the Taliban and he wants to go with them. "There is no way I am going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he said in a string of interviews published to mark his 21st birthday last September. (Mirror.co.uk, Jan 2006)


I hope everyone of the group who gathered in DC last year to protest war and blame the government on the loss of their beloved one in the war could open their eyes to see the fact what dedication-to-military life means for. I am not a person who either support or protest the war but I am able to understand what the consequences they might have to joining up the military and how the war would affect our life and the victims particularly. One thing I don't understand is the reasons they remarked their involvement in the protest. One said "I can't bring my son back, but I can stop other sons and daughters from being killed". Another group supporter raised her voice to protest the government "Shame on you, how many more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice?" These people should have listened to prince Harry who could be a good role model of the true soldiers who are not afraid dying in war attack. Well, this is just another humble thought I'd like to share this morning!

Classical Mood

30 January, 2006

Hellooo! Is there anyone out there who could be my secret admirer? I feel strange that I fall in love with this dude music. Considering too many CDs I have in the house, I wish my secret admirer from nowhere in the space could give me free no mater they are used or new. Please...I want them so badly!

Losing My Appetite

25 January, 2006

As of my breakfast ritual in the morning, watching a talk show is a great companion to complement my breakfast meals. Let's say Tyra Banks show, Regis & Kelly (very rarely), Martha Stewart and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Although I am not a big fan of each host and I just sneak a glance at these shows due to some housework to get done in the same time, I keep up the issues they have talked about and what kind of entertainments they have presented recently. I would say the things I could get from these shows are real issues affecting women from Tyra Banks, entertainments and movie updates from Regis & Kelly, cooking and arts from Martha Stewart, and entertainments with celebrity from Ellen show.


After following several shows of Tyra Banks, I have to say the show steps way out of the track now. The goal to bring up "real issues affecting women today" is not there. Most of the shows are about models and crying story. She concerns about humanity, black people breakdowns in particular, and offers the solution to help them out of the troubles. Is it some kind of missionary to aid black people? She says in one media "My purpose in life is to give people the tools to make themselves better". Seems she tries to play a role of Mother Teresa at this point or open a free psychology practice with no license on the hand (why not merge to Dr. Phil?). It's not surprised to see the show sometimes battled a lot of tears. So, what is the real target anyway; to give people the tools to overcome the real issues or to get the viewers and audiences to cry? Pardon me, who the people on the earth would like to get the "miserable story" supplement in the morning, the time you suppose to get high spirit energy? No, not me for sure!

"Y'all come back soon, y'heah?"

23 January, 2006

These words are typical accents spoken by southern people, not to mention my in-laws though. Read careful here how I would connect this Southern accent and the Miss America 2006.

I was impressed to see the Miss America 2006 show last Saturday in CMT channel. The ten finalists out of 52 contestants come from East & South, none from West and neither do from up-North. When it went down to five, all the finalists are Southern. Fantastic! In the end, James the host announced the winner of 2006 that goes to Jennifer Berry from Oklahoma. Even more Miss America 2005 is from Alabama, again from southern part. Does it mean those students from South are mostly educated better than any other region? Who knows!


The Miss America 2006 results remind me of one Yankee who used to be my English teacher here. He said the Southern speaks in weird accent because most of them are not well educated. I fired back against him to stress the point that the Southern accent has nothing to do with the education. As a matter of fact, it's just about their root and history background. Since then I give no more visit to his class and take another class instead. Certainly not because of his speaking to insult the Southern but most to his inability to teaching. I wonder what would he say to see these highly educated southern girls being on the top of the competition.

Normal Me In Strange Winter

17 January, 2006

Gee.. How can somebody stand for doing the garden in winter time? I do.
Just because it is winter, don't think there is nothing to do in the garden particularly when the temperature is not that too cold. Yeah, the idea came up right on the spot after I found out some bulbs show their new green leaves out of the ground. It means they need to get fresh air and get free from dry leaves that lie layer by layer over the ground. What a caring gardener, ain't I?

Roses in Winter?

13 January, 2006

Calm down.. it's not about miracles I talk about here that you might think my roses stand for cold winter. I know it must be unbelievable to see roses blooming nowadays during this season. Where is the winter anyway? I can't believe the temperature this two weeks is going up and stays at 50's this week just like the other days in the Fall. In contrary with this winter, we got snow four or five times in the Fall, before the official winter on Dec 21th happened. Weird isn't it?


Last night Hubby surprised me with roses and strawberry, my favorite stuff, he bought from grocery store. I found pretty colorful roses on our kitchen table soon I got back from church choir practice. When I asked what occasion it was, he couldn't answer. He asked me in return "Can't I make you surprised sometimes?" Sure, as long as it's nice surprise why not!


I suspect he did it because he'd like to get another cereal and silk milk that sometimes I would not have allowed him to have if we had plenty of cereal and regular milk in the house. Yeah I know I always bought the same cereal he claimed his favorite. And I couldn't get silk milk in Shoppers, the grocery store I use to go, because the supply was out of stock. So, he found out his way to get his silk milk and a different cereal from another grocery last night. Although he doesn't like shopping, he did it very occasionally to get something different or unusual. Now I understand Hubby tried to prevent me from asking many question why he did shopping while we do have stocks in plenty, therefore he bought me that roses and strawberry. Guess what? this trick does work ..hihihi.

Life is Unpredictable

11 January, 2006

Remember the case of Terri Schiavo who died 13 days after the removal of the feeding tube she had for 15 years? I tell you what.. she was not alone. Many people have similar cases that might not be necessarily brought up to controversy issue like Terri had. One of them is Darren's dad who died 30 minutes after his life support was cut off regarding to the family decision. He is such a dad to my hubby and his son, Darren, is his best buddy ever since childhood. We got this bad news last Sunday from Darren himself who made several calls just to express how sad he was. Darren and I talked a lot about religion and church particularly how important to keep faithful to God. Sadly he told me that he and family have never been to the church for a very long time. That's why they had difficult time to find any priest who would give the Sacrament of Extremeunction or Anointing of the Sick, usually is given to the dying to prepare him or her for a happy passage to the hereafter. A good thing is everything for funeral ceremony has been settled finally with Catholic ritual because his dad was raised in Catholic tradition.


After talking a while, he decided to going back to the church together with his family. I hope he keeps his words in reality. Well, sometimes people just think about God when they have problem or when they are in troubles or tragedy. They leave God when they reach prosperity or they live in wealth. They don't understand that all their prosperity and wealth they have are temporarily exist and they could be gone sooner or later. On the other hand, God is eternal, loves everyone unconditional, and has always existed no matter what.


Back to Darren's dad.. I met him once when we helped out Darren and family moving in to their new house last Spring. Both his parents were a good couple. He said in his last email "we will always consider both of you a part of our family. You're welcome here anytime no matter where "here" is". He signed my guestbook at our photo gallery and he put our wedding picture in his web page. Darren told us that his dad loves us, especially my hubby, very much. Unfortunately we couldn't go up Kentucky yesterday for his funeral. We just sent our deep condolences to Darren and family on their loss of their beloved father. Anyhow we keep a good memory with him and the last word we could say "May he rest in peace". For Darren and family, may they find comfort and strength in their memories of the father.

Arigato Gozaimasu

07 January, 2006

"Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005): The story begins in the years before WWII when a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house. Despite a treacherous rival who nearly breaks her spirit, the girl blossoms into the legendary geisha Sayuri. Beautiful and accomplished, Sayuri captivates the most powerful men of her day, but is haunted by her secret love for the one man who is out of her reach. (movies about)


I would say this movie is not a great movie, but it's sort of spectacular because it uncovers what Geisha is and why or how Geisha lives like. My first impression about them was they would attract the customers with their beauty and might end up in love relationship, although it's said generally Geisha are professional hostesses who entertain guests through various performing arts such as Japanese ancient dance, singing, playing instruments. My curiosity turns right and has the answer from this movie. The scene and the acting was okey but the way they spoke was little bit annoying for American-English speaker or listener like me. The problem is all the actress in the cast are non-English speakers who were trained to experience intensive English conversations and who were educated to learn standard English. That's why they all sounded weird in British dialects.


Anyhow, the Japanese theme of the day we watched the movie that day was totally complete after we dined out at sushi place nearby.


Opposite to sappy-romantic-movie "Memoirs of a Geisha", the two movies we have watched over the last few weeks are full of adventures and magic works. They are "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was good as usual (no doubt), only it had dark screen most of the time. What more you expect from this movie other than wonderful special effects, right! yup, they maintained the movie consistently superb and magical.


The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is another thrilling adventure movie I like most. What I do like about this movie is the scene was built very beautiful and wonderful. The movie involved battle scene, the Christian ties and some humor, too. Overall the movie was good and I enjoyed it very much. It's great for any age, though!



Ps. "Arigato Gozaimasu" means thank you very much in Japan

Just Having a Good Time

03 January, 2006

Speaking about holidays, I did have a great time for sure. Although we couldn't go down North Carolina as usual in other years, we made it earlier two weeks before Christmas for exchange-gifts between family. One of my presents is the expensive equipment I wished to have this year from parents-in-law and certainly the equipment would encourage me to improve a certain skill I won't name it here.


Singing in church choir is the best part I had on Christmas days. It was first time for me, as a new choir member, singing Christmas carols together with the group since I just joined the group five months ago. We sang two days in a row, Christmas Eve and Christmas Sunday. Surprisingly Katie who was in 9 am mass choir group and who used to play tambourines in choir asked me to play tambourines for 10.30 am mass on Christmas Sunday, the schedule I use to sing in choir every other Sunday. Though I told her I couldn't play it, she kept convincing me that I could do it. Diane, our music director, didn't push me to play the tambourines, only she said "if you feel comfortable playing the tambourines, do it but if you feel uncomfortable, don't play it". How wise and encouraging she is! I took a chance anyway because it's just for one song. Thank God I did it real well as what they had told me at the end of mass. Sure, I prayed to God before playing that kind of music. Moreover, I was influenced also by street singers in Jakarta who like singing dangdut (pronounced as "dunk doot" in English) together with playing tambourines. The Dangdut is a kind of Indonesian music which is derived from Malay Orchestra and sort of a mixture between Indian, Arabic and Portuguese music. Well, this music is not my kind but I do like to hear some of them especially "Kopi Dangdut" song (Dangdut coffee in English term).


The point I could underline from this story is "don't underestimate yourself" and "respect something you might say worthless because someday it could be worth much for you".

New Year, New Me?

02 January, 2006

First of all, "Happy New Year" to you all.. Hope this year would be filled with new hope, new joy, and new beginnings!

It's been a while this blog was out of my touch. No, not because I was on vacation or lazy but more to web skill I'd like to learn and gain for future benefit. Here I am now!


Well, "new me" I meant in the title above is not about me in person. As seen here in this page, it's certainly about my new design which the theme is winter-focused.


Resolution for this year? Why not, I do have some like anyone else. One of them is to learn sewing more advanced since I have learnt only basic skill last year such as: PJ's pant, decorative pillows and apron. The rest of my resolutions? Unfortunately I keep them personal. They are not part to share with public. Last but not least, wish you all the best and enjoy my page.