We all know we can’t live without the internet and information-on-demand services. But have you thought about what sites you cannot remember doing without? This has been on my mind for some time…and here is my list:

gmail.com (or googlemail!)
This is my all-time no.1 favourite. I have had email addresses with various providers for more than 10 years now (eeeek!)….but gmail changed my life. From the unlimited storage space to the clever search function, I cannot imagine life without gmail. My life is there, from scanned copies of passports, visas and university certs to email addresses of all the lovely people that’s touched my life. I regularly do a search for CV, Address and Passport – as long as you titled you emails properly, you’ll always find what you’re looking for!

flickr.com PRO
It is fast, it is easy, its the photo album documenting my life. The best money I’ve ever splurged out online was for flickrPRO. I have thousands of pictures there, charting my life for the past 5 years. I have instant access to pictures from any computer that has internet access, and I’m loving it. I cannot imagine living without flickr, and earth would be a very sad (and less colorful) place indeed without my flickr.

Paypal
Financial services made easy! It’s only in the past two years that I accepted the power of Paypal – previously I only thought that it was the domain of the ebay crazy. I’m even using it as a savings and expenses account – accepting payments and using it to fund my various harebrained ideas. I’ve earned enough to buy me a camera for this year, but am going to just hold on to it until christmas. In the meantime…the money continues rolling in…

sourrain.comWithout sourrain.com, there would be no need for flickr.com or paypal. Nuff said

wikipedia
The world’s information portal. My first port of call for the random ideas and things that pop into my head on a daily basis – from what is a wifebeater to sewing machines. Brilliant.

I tag all those who are as geeky as me….like magges, moo, dree and lisa … and of course any other geeks out there!

Last year I made resolutions for the first time in my life…listing out items that I would like to finish in the 365 days. Now that it is the end of my time limit….how did I do? Well, let’s see…

Home
To finish decorating the house to resemble a home. To plot escape route and possibly move countries. Two totally contradicting resolutions, but it will be either one or the other.
To plant a tree and start a brand new garden. Planting my friends’ favourite plants and flowers always reminds me of them,if you want to be reminded, tell me what your flower is!

Result: Finished decorating (somewhat) but now no chance to escape at all. Planted a cherry tree but no chance of a new garden.

Self
To lose 5+kg and return to the gym. Start Yoga lessons to correct posture and internal peace
To make an effort to go out more often and love my friends more.To appreciate the friends I keep and cease-and-desist those not worth keeping (like slash and burn). To get over the sickening feeling of homesickness.

Result: More like +10kg. Never saw the inside of a gym. Started Pilates classes, but that quickly went to pot when the instructer keeps failing to turn up. Slash and burn worked.

Hobbies
To make salt dough creations. Finish my origami book with all it’s examples.Take massage classes. Cook proper Malaysian dishes instead of the same old easy student-y dishes. Conquer the art of making Nasi Lemak. Take more photos and get a SLR for more hobbyist shots.

Result: Salt dough did not go further than buying a book. Origami book is still in progress. Am now a qualified Indian Head Massage practitioner.Cooking wise, I had vastly improved over the past 365 days, and have grown to be very adventurous ingreddients wise. I had learn to trust my tingling tastebuds when imagining recipies. Made Nasi Lemak amongst other things. Got an SLR but life got in the way of taking more pictures.

Travel
Would be happy in Ibiza (target time – April). Or if ££ permitting, Phuket with the girls and boy. Get to Glastonbury in end June. Bring parents around UK in July.A longer trip back to KL – preferably with an island break.

Result: Done Ibiza in May. Got to Glastonbury in June and came back nearly in tears with the endless rain. Parents never arrived in the UK. Did not make it back to KL in 2007, but I did get to Prague in August. Did not do much of UK, did not even make it to London at all this year which is outrageous

Career
To find a career that I really want. Do not succumb to work related stress. To develope a more zen-like approach at work.Make more friends at work, irregardless if I move or not.To have a proper saving account instead of splashing it all out on the house and touring the world. Pay off all house-related debts – other than mortgage and car

Result: Move jobs twice.Now in something that I believe I can remain content in for some time to come, which is encouraging. All the hard work of job hunting has come to an end at last after nearly a whole year. Getting better at friends-at-work thing.I had a proper savings account, which had dwindled to near nothingness in the past two weeks. Blame it on xmas spluge, visa price & after Christmas sales. And not to mention my tickets to KL for Feb. Sigh. However, finance wise should look up next year as Bacon would have gotten a 40% pay rise from his current salary.

And here’s wishing a happy & succesful New 2008 to everyone!!!!!

Lately I seem to be running into a writers’ block. I’ve got ideas, all surrounded by the need to take pictures. With the turning weather, honestly, I really do NOT feel like going out to take pictures. All I seem to do when I get back is eat, clean, bathe and watch tv in bed. I love the concept of tv in bed; my old room was too tiny and all I could afford when I was a student in Fresno was a 13inch tv.

Tonight’s choice of tv show is China’s missing children. It explores the illegal trade of child trafficking in this one-child country, voluntary and kidnapped. Strangely enough, children in China are actually a topic very close to my heart. I have been searching high and low for a charity to belong to, something that I feel strongly enough. I wanted to ‘save the turtles’, but of course, am unable to send a local Malaysian cheque. I then turned to look for a charity to help children’s education in China, but strangely enough cannot find one that penetrates deep China where it is most needed.

I digress.

Some child trafficking are done with the parents’ consent , some are kidnapped and sold on to childless couples desparate for a child to love. Some are sold as cheap labour. And some, according to the wifes’ tale that I grew up with, are groomed to be petty thiefs or to beg on the streets. For the purposes of this blog, I am only going to discuss parents who had knowingly sold their children. This is definately not something new in China, who for centuries, the peasants have sold their children to richer families as child servant or betrothed thier pre pubescent daughters as future wifes and mistresses of the local landlord. Anyone who had ever watched an olden style TVB drama would know what I am talking about. Parents who are so improvished, they willingly sell their children out of love, to enable them to lead a better life. Or not?

I am of course, not a mother, nor am I even half motherly. I can love my cat, and that’s probably all I am capable of now. Therefore, I make no claim to understanding how parents feel when giving their children away. But I have actually know of children who had been sold by their mothers. No, they were not kidnapped, they were ‘given away’ by their parents for a price. A very lucrative price. And of course, boys fetch a much higher price than the girls.

Whether morally it is right or wrong, the sold children that I have personally witnessed is now leading a much, much better life than it would have been possible with their birth parents. One came from a poor family already burdened with 7 children. Another came from an illicit affair between a drug addict and an underage girl.

They are now very loved by their ‘adopted’ parents. The big difference between a purchased child and an adopted child boils down to legality. With a purchased child, if an agreement is made before the child is born, it is entirely possible to get the buyers’ names on the birth certificate, thus the child never knowing that they have been adopted. Ignorace is bliss? The way the Malaysian government works does not help as well, passport applications for under-21s require the birth father’s signature, and the child will only receive Malaysian citizenship if the father is Malaysian.

I am frankly torn between this moral dillema of child trade. In a perfect world, we would all be able to reproduce a mini-me if we should choose to, but this world is far from perfect. No, I am not planning to have a baby now nor am I planning to buy one. Is it right to buy a child, if not for anything to at least give it a better life than the birth parents can ever dream of? Is it right to hide from your children that they are not blood and flesh, but were purchased for a price? Will they really be happier knowing that their birth parents had sold them for cold hard cash?

Seeing how much their ‘adopted’ parents love them, seeing them being showered with gifts and toys I feel that they have been very lucky indeed. But as I watch them grow into teenagers, I am not sure how long have their doting parents got until the children finally finds out that they have been purchased.

I have drafted and re-drafted this post in an attempt to articulate my thoughts – but it’s been fairly difficult and sometimes downright conflicting.Two incidents over the past week had made me question the development of female equality. Now, I have never admitted to be a feminist, I enjoy the occasional male chivalry and being pampered as a female species. I don’t mind having to pay my half of the household bills, and I believe that with or without a husband/bf, I would still be able to support myself and be happy.I even enjoy bending the rules by batting my eyelashes. But the two incidents over the past week had made me rethink about how far have we really come as a sex.

Case 1:
Some girls are brought up to depend to men for everything. They believe that they are able to manipulate any men by just the simple fact that they are pretty; personality not required. They believe that their beauty will get them the ‘best’ man; i.e. the richest, best looking, treat them best ect. They also believe that they will stand behind their man, and not side by side.

In the same train of thought, we had a shocking discovery last week of a friend that admitted at last in wanting an expensive wedding, paid for by her supposedly well-off boyfriend -> how he treats her or how their relationship is developing is irrelevant. What was most important to her was that she believe that she would be able to upgrade her life (to a stay-at-home tai tai I guess) once she manages to manipulate him to matrimony.She also believed that irregardless of how damaging their relationship had been or the fact that she had continued ‘hunting’ for better prey, it is just logical that the next step for him is to spend all his money on marrying her.

What really got to me was that she felt so strongly about ‘marrying upwards’ and that at her ripe age (a little younger than me), she is unable to wait any longer for a lifetime commitment. I know her requirements for a partner had always been high, but I had always questioned her attitute to men that her beauty surpasses everything. Unless you’re close to her, she has the personality of a limpet, an attitute of an ignorant peasant woman and a very showy(branded items) front. She basically blow every chance that life had given her to ‘upgrade’ her life i.e. education, better career ect. And at the moment she is just like a cake sitting in the window, waiting to be sold off.

At the moment, I am not even sure if she’s ever loved this poor guy she’s trying to entrap or is she just ticking off a box that says he is rich.

Why do women marry for the sake of money & status (i.e. being MRS DR XXX) , and what will posess them to be so helplessly useless?

Case 2:
I recently met up with someone I have known for ages, yes, right here in the UK. We have never hung out together, so she wouldn’t appear on my list of call-a-friend if I ever appear on Who wants to be a millionaire. Being related makes us ‘friends’, and makes me a must-meet -up person. But I digress

She popped over to Leeds to meet up with me with a guy ‘FRIEND’. Now, I have guy friends as well,and for most part, I think I have more guy friends compared to female friends. Just look at the who’s who on my bacherlorette party. However, when we go out as friends, we either take turns to pay or go dutch; after all, we are all trying to earn a living here. Unless you’re PenangKia, in which case you secretly pay my bill even if you did not have a drink.

This guy friend of her (which she had known for a few months), upon meeting us (me & bacon) for the first time an hour ago, proceeded to pay for our dinners. I was fairly uncomfortable with that, as I do not know him well, and from what I know, he was not well-paid in his job (he incidentaly works in the same company as bacon, and we were able to guess his salary from his job title) .What shocked me most was that SHE did not offer to pay at all. Neither did another friend of hers that tagged along. Upon further discussions (no, I did NOT interrogated her, just surfaced in our conversation) I realized that he pays for her most of the time, if not all the time.And they go out to eat at least a couple of times a week. If you’ve been reading my blog, you would had realized that I sometimes feel I am eating away all my salary – and that’s with me and bacon mostly taking turns.

The key here is that she has a bf back home, whom she is apparently planning to marry next year.

The matching database key also says that he is treating her like they are an item, paying for everything and going out with her for restaurant meals, taking time off to go shopping with her.

And the SQL (I am such a geek) statement produces the answer that this is a relationship

HOWEVER, she (and her other friend – female) also allowed me to pay for drinks ect. without lifting a finger to help me carry them nor a penny to pay towards the drinks. Which I don’t really mind doing for her, seeing that we’re related and all, but her other friend (female) who just sits there sponging off strangers, I find a little strange.

It is also extremely disturbing to me that they sponge off this guy endlessly and just expects him to pay for all their food ect even though they have not known him long.

They incidentaly also sponged off bacon by not offering to pay him anything when he got their drinks in. Bear in mind they had not met him before.

I don’t wish to pick on small token sums of money. I willingly pay for friends and people I love,but I will not be taken for a sui yee (turtle) by people I dont know.

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How far have we really come from the 1950s where the man is expected to bring back the bacon, and the woman is just supposed to not contribute nor have any ambitions other than to snare a rich man?

I am extremely dissapointed.