Fabulous Party!

What a wonderful time we had last night!  One of our good friends celebrated his 40th birthday in style….. 70s style that is,… and we all had a blast!  The food was great!  The music was great!  The decor was great!  But best of all - being among friends was great! 

I know that I can go on and on talking about it….. but I shall not.  As promised, I have some photos to share.  For some reason, I couldn’t load more than this on this slide show…  (Some of you will be able to view more photos from last night on Facebook … )

…… I think it will be a few more days before I fully recover…. Ha! Ha!

Link to Photos

Looking up the 70s…

Here’s the deal.  This Saturday, the family has been invited to a party.  And like many parties these days, there is a theme to comply with.  For this one, it is “Celebrating the 70s“.  So, in the last month, I had been (on-and-off) researching the 70s!  Of course, my main intention was more about finding out how the family should be dressed for this special occasion rather than making historical inquiries. 

Although I was born in the 70s, I don’t remember much of it,.. except for dancing to “One Way Ticket” in our living room.  (For some strange reason, this memory is really vivid - I can even remember what I was wearing that day as a 7 year old!).  Looking back at that era now, seems almost unreal.  There was so much happening in the world than, and I knew so little of it.  Of course, I have a good excuse - I was a child then.  But, seeing how well-informed my own children are with the movie and music industry these days, not to mention historical events that happen around the world, I do feel a little guilty of “missing-out” on what seemed like a great decade.

Now,…. back to the 70s fashion.  Wow!  I have never come across so many interesting descriptions.  To mention a few: Retro style, shift dresses, hippie fashion, platforms, flares, bell-bottoms, and tie-dyed tee shirts!  Recommended accessories include afro wigs, glitter sunglasses and hairy chests! 

In case you are wondering….. No, we are no where near knowing what we’ll be wearing on Saturday.  I got to get busy! 

This is what I looked like that night!!!!

Maybe just a little lack of patience ……

I actually have lots to write about ….. the Open Day at a local gymnastics centre, my girls night out watching Sex and the City (what else?), V’s birthday party at an Indoor Soccer Stadium, my boys bringing their mid year reports back from school,….

…… but, I’m just having a bit of trouble sitting down and writing at the moment.  No particular reason for this.  Maybe just a little lack of patience, that’s all. 

Will be back soon …….  :)

Winter is Here…..

I must apologise for not being around much this week.  Caught a cold and have been dragging my feet….. I hope to be “up and running as normal” soon……

A Dreadful Scare …… Never Again I Pray

Last Sunday, we went to a party to celebrate a 7 year old’s birthday.  Usually with kids birthday parties, we would just leave our children at the party venue, and pick them up once the party was over.  However, on this occasion, as the birthday boy’s family were family friends of ours, we stayed on. 

Being a boy’s party, there had to be games involved.  So what better place to have a sports party than at an Indoor Stadium (incidentally, my youngest son, V, will also be having a party at the same venue next month).  So, not long after we arrived, the party host invited all the boys into the soccer area in the stadium for a game.  This was my opportunity to mingle with the other adults, so that was what I did.

A few moments later, I watched as my eldest son (8 year old, J) walk out of the soccer area towards me.  He looked as if he had tears in his eyes and I wasn’t at all surprised as J didn’t enjoy sports (unlike V who loves it!).  I thought that he had changed his mind about participating and decided to call it quits.  That was fine with me. 

He walked over to me and said in a quiet voice that he was hit by the soccer ball on his chest and that it hurt  a lot.  As would any mother in that situation, I rubbed his chest, said some comforting words to him and told him that he didn’t have to play soccer if he didn’t want to.  There….. that was all settled now I thought.  We stood there, my arm on his shoulder, watching V and the other young ones play.

All of a sudden, J slumped onto me, mumbling.  I held onto him, asking him what’s wrong.  Then I saw, his head tilt back and his eyes roll backwards.  He had gone limp - his eyes continued to roll.  I couldn’t even hold him, his weight seemed so, so heavy.  He was falling unconscious.  I screamed to hubby who thankfully wasn’t standing too far away.  Hubby ran over and picked him up.  That’s when I saw it…. J was convulsing… eyes still rolled back. 

Hubby ran with J in his arms to the reception area.  No one was there.  We screamed for someone to come quickly.  I am usually a very quiet person by nature, but thinking back as to how I was shouting for help at the top of my voice …. just doesn’t seem real.  Someone did stroll in a  moment later (which felt like eternity, so I cannot really describe how immediate it was).  By then, some of the other adults from the party had gathered around us too.  I held my son on the floor cradling his head on my knee.  He was conscious now but looked very, very weak.  Hubby explained what happened to the Stadium Manager- we wanted to know if we had an emergency in our hands.  The Manager tried to assure us that it wasn’t anything serious and that J should be out playing again with the other kids in no time.  Seriously!  If you had your semi-conscious son in your arms, how is that kind of response going to help!!  The other adults we just as ‘unexperienced’ as us, so they couldn’t really advise us any differently.  We decided we’d let J lie on a sofa for a while and see what happened.

J did gradually, very slowly, gain his energy back.  Not long later, he sat up and after urging him a little, he started walking around at the stadium a little.  His body was very cold for quite some time.  By the end of the hour, he was ‘back to normal’.  But hubby and I - we weren’t.

The scariest thing from this experience was that feeling of helplessness.  I didn’t know what to do.  Hubby didn’t know what to do.  And from what it looked like, most of the adults at the party were just as in-cognisant as hubby and I were.  No one could confidently tell us what was happening and what the best treatment for the situation was.  We were not in control.  And that is a terrible, terrible feeling when your child is having a medical emergency.  

Less than 24 hours later, I had signed up for a one-day training course on First Aid with the Australian Red Cross, which will be held on 26 June.   I will be trained on CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and other key skills to carry out emergency first aid in life threatening injuries and illnesses.  I know that I can never be fully prepared for any emergency, but I pray that with this little bit of extra knowledge and skills, I can help provide an educated response in future emergency situations, be it involving family or not. 

“You Speak Excellent English!”

Somebody said this to me the other day.  “You speak excellent English!”.  The comment took me by surprise.  It took me a a few moments to let those words sink in.  My silence must have made Tracy feel a little awkward, so she went on to ask me “How long have you been in Australia?”. 

At the time, Tracy and I were sitting on the side bench, watching our children have their swimming class.  We have only known each other for maybe about 6-7 weeks now.  As the weeks passed, our conversations had gotten friendlier (of course), and I guess, it had reached a point where she was comfortable to comment on what must have been on her mind for some time now.

I told her that I had been in living in Australia for the past 10 years. I also added that the first time I stepped foot into this country was even further back in time - as a 19 year old starting university in the beautiful city of Perth, Western Australia (for three glorious years!)  Tracy seemed happy with the answer.  But I was not.  My mind was reeling - Silly girl! Your response made it sound like you only started speaking English when you landed in Australia!,  I scolded myself silently.  So, I had to add a bit more.  I went on to tell Tracy that I had been speaking English ALL MY LIFE.  In fact, I had to shamefully admit to her (as I am now confessing to all of you reading this), that I only spoke English at home when I was growing up.  I could not and still cannot speak Tamil which is my mother tongue. (Shame!).  This response did surprise her a bit!  She then asked in what language I spoke in to my boys at home.  English, of course, I replied.   Tracy looked fascinated.

This whole week, I had been replaying this event again and again in my mind.  Questions after questions keep popping up - Do the general population expect immigrants not to speak good English?  What else is the ‘general’ assumption?  Would Tracy be suprised to know that my family eats more pasta and oven baked food than curry and rice at home?   Will she be shocked if she knew that we had a 5 burner BBQ on the backyard deck?  And that any chance we get, we go on farm holidays? 

I thought, the only way I was going to understand this is if I reversed the situation.  So, I imagined myself to be still living in Malaysia (and speaking fluent Tamil!)  I imagined meeting Tracy in Malaysia, and having a conversation with her in Tamil.  I tried to imagine Tracy telling me that she has spoken Tamil all her life, even as she was growing up in Australia.  But it was hard!!  Somehow, I could not convince myself that, this could ever happen!!

I guess I know now that we all probably judge and make presumptions about each other too quickly.  Generalising and sterotyping should not be the ‘way to go’.  I have learnt my lesson and I am glad that I have made a small change in one other person’s mind about “people from other countries”.  In fact, I am hoping that I can go on making this (little) change in more people  :)  .

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[For the record, I can understand Tamil when my parents speak it to each other (most of the time), but I cannot understand the language when I hear it in a movie or when it is spoken by anyone else].  (I know - NOT ACCEPTABLE!)

Book Review: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Title:  Eat Pray Love
Author:  Elizabeth Gilbert
Published:  2006
Author’s Website:  Elizabeth Gilbert’s Official Website

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Summary:

Eat Pray Love is a memoir.  In it, the author (Elizabeth) narrates about her consuming thoughts and life, as she visits Italy, India and Bali to seek the meaning of passion, spirituality and balance.

My View:

When I first started reading this book, the introduction sounded very familiar.  It reminded me very much of a movie that I had watched:  Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane and Sandra Oh.  (Incidently, the movie is also based on a  written memoir of the same name).  As in this book, the movie was also about a gloomy American writer, who was also going through the emotions of a turbulent divorce, and who had also decided to ‘take a break from it all’ by going to a foreign country, in which case was Tuscany-Italy.  Interesting, I thought.

As with most books, the initial chapters were very exciting.  After all, I was ‘getting to know’ the main character, in this case which was Elizabeth.  It was comforting to learn that she was as ordinary as anybody.  Just another woman going through life, I thought.  And this excited me.  I love reading about other people’s life and what they learn from going through it, and with the charming way that Elizabeth was writing, I thought I was going to fall in love with the book in no time.

But,…. I was wrong.  I wasn’t falling in love at all.  In fact, I actually started getting a little bored by the time we reached India.  Somehow, I felt as if the initial spark that lit up the book in the front-end, was beginning to diminish.  Where are you taking me, I kept asking Elizabeth silently in my mind.  Of course, there were moments of awe here and there.  But they seemed to be getting less frequent as I progressed.

By the time we were in Bali, it just felt as if I was being led by a leash.  It felt as if Elizabeth was writing the “who, what and where” in precise detail (of course from notes and journals that she must have kept through out her trip) and then editing in the emotional side of the events as an ‘after thought’.  Somewhere in the book, I had lost the Elizabeth that had initially grasped my interest and excitement. 

Recommendation:

In Australia, this book in on a Top 10 list.  So, I’m sure that it must be catering for some people’s taste.  But my personal thoughts are, if you are after a memoir that will inspire you to appreciate the little things in life and to learn from the world around us - this is not the one!

Review By Other Bloggers:

A-Kay of Lemon and Chillies >>>>  here.

Suman of Thoughts Unlimited >>>> here.

Laksh of Laksh Musing >>>> here.

Challenge Week: Vegetarian Food: DAY 4 (of 5)

Seeing that I have been a very good girl these past 4 days, I decided to treat myself today!  Don’t worry - I did not break my challenge.  After all, I only have 1 day left to go . Today, I treated myself with my most favourite of all Indian snacks - SPICY MASALA VADA !!

Now back to my challenge.  Well, it is coming to an end, and personally, I have been so delighted with myself for getting through this so far.  Although I can see the finish line, I am not going to congratulate myself just yet.  We’ll leave that for tomorrow.  However, what I would like to reiterate is WHY I have taken up this challenge (and why I will continue taking up more little challenges like this).  

This ongoing ‘Challenge Project’ as I  fondly call it, is meant to be part of a personal quest.  A quest for self discovery.  Often, we all get so caught up with the day-to-day activities that we almost always end up flying on “auto-pilot”.  I don’t want to live my life on Auto-Pilot . I believe that life is too precious to be lived that way.  That is why, I want to continue to challenge myself - to continue learning and discovering.  That is why I am doing this Challenge Project. 

I have a few ideas as to what I could challenge myself with for next week, and am still toying around with them in my mind.  It will not start till next Monday.  :)

Ooppps!  Almost forgot to mention what I’d prepared for dinner!  Tonight’s main couse is a Chinese dish eaten with white rice.  Stir fried broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and baby corn with a little corn flour and soy sauce.  I have also added a little Oyster Sauce and Chicken Stock (Cheating?  I thought that since I was not being a Vegetarian for religious reasons and as long as I am not eating any meat, using such meat related products was alright in this challenge.)  Do tell me if I have broken a fundamental rule of Vegetarianism and that I should be disqualified from referring to myself as a Vegetarian.  Seriously!

 

Challenge Week: Vegetarian Food: DAY 3 (of 5)

It is mid-week and thus also mid-point of my self imposed Vegetarian Week challenge.  DAY 1 and DAY 2 was survived (astonishingly) without any major dramas.  I am also very thankful for the support and encouragement that I have been receiving from my blog friends and readers.  A big ‘Thank You’ to all! 

Before I go on about the details of the vegetarian dishes I prepared today, I would like to share with you a couple of websites that I came across on my mini research on….. you guessed it….. being a vegetarian.  They are both Australian content, but nevertheless (maybe) still useful for all you Non-Australian readers out there.  They are >>

National Vegetarian Week - I never knew that we celebrated a Vegetarian Week here in Australia, which is  held on 1-7 October!  This is great news for me and I am on board for this year’s celebrations. :)  The website has some good educational information and tips .

Australian Vegetarian Society - I couldn’t believe it when I came across this one!   A quick glance of this site - I found it to be a little confronting for us meat eaters.  “Please,… we are not the enemy…” , I found myself pleading as I quickly read through some of the content.  Although I am not planning to become a vegetarian on a full time basis, I am all for being educated on the subject.  Therefore, later, I will put on my brave-face and charge through the site yet again.

OK. Now as to what I prepared for dinner…..

Thanks to recipes found at Sailus Food, our vegetarian dinner tonight consisted of  Rava Dosa and Besan Chutney.  Both of these items were very easy to make.   Although I have eaten rava dosa before, it was however the first time i tried  besan chutney,.. and I loved it.  A big thank you to Sailus Food!