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What makes a woman beautiful

It’s not about you having big eyes or small eyes.
It’s not about your face shape—be it oval, round or square.
It’s not about you having a sharp nose or a flat nose.
It’s not about you having flawless skin or a pimpled face.
It’s not about your skin color, whether you’re dark or fair.
It’s not about your height, whether you’re tall or short.
It’s not about you being slim or plump.

And mind you, a lot of us believe what the world perceives as beautiful to be true. We think that pretty girls must have flawless skin, silky long hair, big eyes, perfect eyebrows, an oval face, a sharp nose, fair, tall, and slim.

No, a woman is beautiful when after the mishaps and past failures is able to still rest in God, trusting that she is in the wonderful hands of the God Almighty. As Stasi Eldredge in her book Your Captivating Heart put it, “A beautiful woman is one who is at rest.” She doesn’t compare herself with others as to who is better or prettier. She is at peace, because she knows that she is the Lord’s beloved daughter.

You are beautiful, because you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). No matter how you feel and no matter what others tell you, God says, “You are my precious daughter.”

- Edna Ho, http://ymiblogging.org/2012/04/what-makes-a-woman-beautiful/

When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

Anxiety

Anxiety is not going to bring you anywhere, but prayer will. When the time is right, the Lord will bring us to where he is. Instead of worrying and making yourself feel all terrible, wouldn't it be better to just put it in His hands to see what he has to tell you?

Your Love never Fails - Jesus Culture

Verse 1:
Nothing can separate
Even if I ran away
Your love never fails

I know I still make mistakes
You have new mercies for me every day
Your love never fails

Chorus:
You stay the same through the ages
Your love never changes
There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning

And when the oceans rage
I don't have to be afraid
Because I know that you love me
your love never fails

Verse 2:
The wind is strong and the water's deep
But I am not alone in these open seas
Your love never fails

The chasm is far too wide
I never thought I'll reach the other side
But your love never fails

Bridge: 
Because you make
All things work together for my good 

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

Relativity

I've read this a couple of times, and recently its back on facebook posts again. Just thought I'll put it here so that I can look at it again if I would like to. :)

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?


Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.



By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

一时的感性

有人说爱情最长的距离是爱你的人在你面前你却看不见。

哪人是否在茫茫人群中觉得最孤单呢?

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

Flavours of the month

 School's started, holidays ended and I've gotten preeeeetty busy. There's however always time for some cravings too! :) I had a really great time with the girls (and guys) when they came over to visit me as their grad trip. Though it was a lot of travelling on the road, sleeping in the car most of the time, the time spent was definitely worth it. The little quirks we have while sleeping (like shouting taichung in your sleep haha) and the little habits that we have in our everyday lives all surfaced through these 3 weeks of travelling together. Definitely would do it anytime again :)

So Singapore recently had this big hooha about cooking curry at home and there's been events all over about cooking curry (all kinds), despite us being overseas, we would still not be left out! Since I was going to be busy this weekend with ISD's harmony day and all, we agreed to have curry last weekend and jon cooked it all from scratched! Kai and I made sayur lodeh with the prima pack that his mom got while zy made prata and aq and wh made 'abc' soup. Here's a quick picture of jon's pretty awesome curry!



I made a couple of other stuff to test out if they were feasible for harmony day, including tau suan and muah chee. We've decided to scrap tau suan though cos its sooooo hard to keep it warm without having a water bath rather than over the stove and let it disintegrate. I've took a picture of it though. I've forgotten about pictures for the muah chee. Maybe I'll be able to get one on Saturday :) Here's a picture of my pig trotters in black vinegar, just a craving I had hehe.
 

Time to get back to work! :) 

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

The night we go back smelling real bad

Today was a day that we all went home smelling really bad, and its not because of anything else BUT fried anchovies smell. It all came from making the sambal for our nasi lemak night, without the use of belachan. If we had belacan in it, I doubt we would be smelling even better than this. So the past week I haven had much to show for our adventures considering how we have not really cooked much exciting stuff. So here's a few shots of our nasi lemak, after the long wait for the food to be done. Each of us were assigned to a certain part of the meal, for example kai had to make the rice, anqing to cut the cucumbers, steph to make the chicken wings, zy to make the anchovies and peanuts, me the eggs and well jon with everything else :D Too bad for being the most experienced cook! hahah.

I took a picture of almost each dish cept the plate of cucumbers :( cos it was left in the kitchen, all forgotten only to be brought out after everyone was well tucked into their meals and I was too famished to be leaving for my camera. Sorry! Anyway, everything else was good enough :) So there was the all important sambal, the pieces of omelette, the deep fried chicken wings and fish, luncheon meat (which zy just had to cook in a deep pot of oil, ew!), the fried anchovies and peanuts, the sambal stir-fried long beans and lady's fingers (known as snake beans and okra respectively in Australia) and last but not least, the rice cooked with coconut milk! :)
 
      
 
So here's a comparison of the stuff on our plates. The one on the left being mine and the one on the right being zy's. At least I finished my food :)
 
 
Here's just a few other shots of the little bits here and there of the food that I do remember to take a picture of. After having steamboat at jon's place one night, we decided to have desserts to go with it and therefore baked some pandan cake to go with a box of ice cream! :) I wanted to try the natural way of making it, that is to blend the pandan leaves with some water for the essence but zy and jon decided that they want a darker green colour. We have thus a battle of the natural vs the artificial! haha. Clearly the cake made naturally tasted a lot better than the artificial cake, probably due to the fact that we used too big an egg for that giving it a more eggy taste than preferred. I only remembered to take a picture of it after we were done with half of the cakes for both, hence the not so nice pictures. hahha. The one of the left is the cake made with artificial flavour while the one of the right is the natural. Check out the difference in the colour! The artificial is definitely a darker green.
 
 
So the other day I decided I want to have some steamed fish, but all we had was a slab of basa fish in the freezer and it obviously wasn't the best choice of fish to steam, but being poor students and only able to afford cheaper fishes like basa, I just went ahead to steam it! It was too bad I feel though kai said it wasn't as good in texture. Also I decided to have some stir-fried asparagus with salt and garlic to go with it. This was also dinner for the night when Jon got stuck in fyshwick because his car died after leaving his hazard lights on for 5 minutes. Guess that little old car really needed a new battery. It's even older than me for goodness sake! haha.
 
 
So that's it for the food journey this week! Since we'll be out for dinner almost every day before leaving for the East coast of Australia, I doubt I'll have more to update. Maybe just one more of kai's carbonara made from scratch! Let's cross our fingers and hope its a success! :) Can't wait to be gone for the holidays! I'm starting to get really bored here! 

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

Bringing along a taste of home

When you're away from home and you can barely get much of the tastes you are used to, you tend to want to recreate some of it. So a few of us decided to get together to make some Shou Gong Mian from scratch! :) Using the basic flour, water, egg and salt, we made the dough and shaped it using a borrowed pasta maker device. Putting everything together, we get the end result of a home-made noodle soup that is just right for a cold cold winter night! :) We added a lot of other ingredients that aren't usually seen with it since Jon had some left over. There was fried ikan bilis too but its obviously not in my bowl since I dislike it! hehe.


I had some craving for wantan mee the other day, so we decided to buy some charsiew and roast duck from the local roast shop to go with the egg noodles that we bought and made with our own seasonings. It was salty or spicy enough for me probably due to the overwhelming amount of noodles that we had. The package said for 2-4 persons. Isn't it weird? It's definitely too much for two of us! It sure did satisfy my craving though! :) The only reason we chose not to buy the wantan mee from the shop was because the taste was just different from the ones I'm used to. The ones here were too bland and had the strong taste of the colouring kind like you get when you eat the thick yellow noodles in Singapore. The steam from the boiled broccoli made the charsiew and duck look so blurred. Bleah.
 
The next thing I tried to recreate from home was the creamy white chicken stew that my mum used to cook for us. It's definitely something that's off the recipes often used and something that my mum improvised on her own. Hers was whiter than mine and definitely did not have the taste of the five spices powder that I added into mine. I probably added too much of it plus the dark soy sauce also might have contributed to the darker colour of my stew. Nevertheless, it was still tasty and it also means I'm one step closer to re-creating the taste I have been craving so much for! :) It was great with the rice and for me, I like mine with some Lingham sweet chilli too! The colours probably differed because of the lighting from the hood! hehe.
 
 
So here's a little update on my little holiday project where I try to make as much food that we don't usually make during school time because we're just too busy trying to make it a quick meal and some fast grocery shopping too. Only managed all these because we've been going to the market (finally for the first time this year!) where they have all the cuts of meat that I want since I haven got a big chopper! hehe.

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

A few shots to remember by

 I think it was during the two weeks break that ja and viv called us along to make an impromptu trip to Wollongong, just so that we could get out of good ol' Canberra. The weather was pretty much alternating between rain and shine, which honestly can be pretty irritating. We still took some shots of the Fitzroy falls though since we were just nearby and even paid for the national park entry fee. It was also here that I discovered something new about toilets. The toilet bowls here were made in such a way that the front portion was for pee and the back portion was for the bigger business. Well, its still one big hole, just that you can clearly see that the front is more elevated and the back just falls deep into nothingness. haha.

Just take a look at the amazing waterfalls!

The two pictures were supposed to be connected but because its obviously hard to capture the waterfalls when you're right beside it, this is the result. haha. Doesn't look as majestic in these pictures. Sorry!

Here's a picture of it from across the trek.

The following picture was taken while on the trip home from Sydney after a short getaway break to spend some time on our assignment, without having to worry about cooking since we had much cheaper and better tasting asian food just across the street. That's the benefit of staying at Breakfree on George! :) It's lovely to be in a country with supposedly 4 seasons. Though I think summer and winter pretty much dominated.


A few shots around school as winter approaches and autumn moves along.




A shot from the window of my room, as daylight turns to night. I've always loved how sunrise and sunset create such lovely colours in the sky. Beauty of nature eh? The reflection of the overhead light just has to spoil this picture. Mankind effect on nature? 

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

My first attempt

Last friday was my first attempt at making ngoh hiang, or known as 'five spice rolls'. I've basically gone online to review some of the recipes, and modifying it to something convenient for me. However, things did not go the way it ought to be and my ngoh turned out too bland :( Here's some pictures of the ngoh hiang!

This is the ngoh hiang before it was fried. Somehow the beancurd skin that they have here in Canberra is super different from the ones we have back in Singapore, or at least i think so from the looks of how my sister's mother-in-law made it.


Here's a picture of it after being steamed since I had a recipe and a cousin telling me to steam first before frying.


Here's a shot of it after its fried.


This are some of the ngoh hiang that was pan fried only.
 
So I gave some of them away and apparently the comments were that it was a bit on the bland side and batched that was steamed before frying tasted better because it was easier to cut and eat. hmm. Guess we'll just have to see if the I ever have a second attempt on this. haha.
 
I brought two pieces along for dinner at jon's place, and it definitely smelt just like it should when we were frying it.
 
It only occurred to me to take a picture of it inside after we were almost done with it. opps!
 
Here's a shot of what else we had for dinner! Honey soy sauce on steamed cod fish, black pepper beef and stir-fried broccoli with tiger prawns. :) Yum Yum. Too full for more after that considering that we had only three people for dinner.
 
This spelt the end of our food for the week since I was too lazy after taking a while to prepare the ngoh hiang and we only did some light cooking with whatever we had left for the next few days. We had domino's pizza, burger from The London (which was really good I must say), stir-fried angel's hair, watercress soup, sambal prawns, steamed tofu with minced pork and Sichuan Mala hotpot (which we simply use those instant soup packs :x). I've forgotten to get a picture of all the above except the stir-fried vermicelli we had for lunch today! :)
 
I apologise for the ugly garnish since I was trying to finish up all the shallots and coriander that I've cut. :P Just a little update on what I've been up to during my little break from school.

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When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.

Post exams

SO the exams are over for this semester. There are so many that came in with me in July 2008 who are about to graduate this year with the end of this semester. This includes the girls who entered university the same time as me. How fast time flies! Though I've still got a year on my degree before I'll graduate and step into the workforce, I'm already a little drained with these continuous cycle of exams and studying. Can't wait for things to be done!

Anyway, so now that the holidays are here for me and it's a while still before the girls and Tins are here to tour the east coast of Australia, I've decided to make some food from back home. Largely due to the air tickets being so expensive for me to fly back for a short two weeks to see the little ones and eat some better tasting food. So here begins the food expedition! :)

Here's a picture of tonight's dinner! Hopefully I'll be able to keep this coming for a while, the food pictures I mean. :)


This is a picture from my handphone. It's so much clearer as compared to my Olympus camera which supposedly has higher megapixels -.-

Oh and here's a little picture of the little girl whom I skyped with yesterday. She was so proud of herself when she attempted to stand up and such an attention seeker. She kept insisting on others clapping before she does her stand haha, so cute! :)


When you are tired, you'll know who you need to look to.