A marathon of HOPE

The late Terry Fox
July 1958 - June 28 1981

Last sunday, the whole bunch of Party of 5ive entered the Terry Fox run 2011 held at Padang Merbok KL recently. It was the second running event that we brought the kids along. The first was the KFC Walk of Charity Life about 2 weeks ago. The distance this time was a 3km family run which to me kira cam easy peasy lah considering I had done the furthest 10km (sungguh la eksyen) at the Putrajaya Night Marathon about a month ago.

Some facts about the The Terry Fox run. According to Wikipedia, Terrance Stanley Fox, the man who so much inspired the marathon of hope died in 1981 due to bone cancer. He contracted the disease when he was 18 years old. He was a Canadian humanitarian, athlete and also a cancer research activist. Such an impressive achievement  for a young man of 22 years old! Admirable indeed.

When he decided to run to raise money for cancer awareness and research, he was already an amputee (he lost his right leg due to cancer). His aim was simple - to raise a dollar for each of Canada's 24 million population at the time. But he was forced to end the run eventually as cancer had spread to his lungs. He completed it in just 9 months before he succumbed to his illness.

To date, a cool $500 plus million had been collected throughout the marathon of hope yearly event since its inception. Today, The Terry Fox Run is the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research. More information on the late Terry Fox here.

note the kid in the middle looking so forlorn...he was subtly giving a protest look when told that we will be running that morning..

 memasing tengah sibuk buat hal sendiri..

budak tecit yg suka memerap..

tergolek dog..

I need my handyplastttt pronto! 

We managed to complete the run albeit an injured runner (pic above). So drama king lah that kid huhu.

Stereo heart of mine

My heart's a stereo

It beats for your, so listen close

Hear my thoughts in every note

Make me your radio

Turn me up when you feel low

This melody was meant for you

Just sing along to my stereo

[Travie McCoy]

If I was just another dusty record on the shelve

Will you blow me off and play me like everybody else

If I ask you to scratch my back, could you manage that

Like it read well, check it Travie, I can handle that

Furthermore, I apologize for any skipping tracks

'Cause this the last girl that played me left a couple cracks

I used to used to used to used to, now I'm over that

Cause holding grudges over love is ancient artifacts

If I could only find a note to make you understand

I'd sing it softly in your ear and grab you by the hand

Keep it stuck inside your head, like your favorite tune

And know my heart is a stereo that only plays for you

[Chorus]

My heart's a stereo

It beats for your, so listen close

Hear my thoughts in every note

Make me your radio

Turn me up when you feel low

This melody was meant for you

Just sing along to my stereo

Oh oh oh oh To my stereo

Oh oh oh oh So sing along to my stereo

[Travie McCoy]

If I was an old school, fifty pound boombox

Would you hold me on your shoulder, wherever you walk

What makes a song funky? Only when Adam Levine's singing it! :P

Last friday's snippets

Last friday, my husband and I did blood test to follow up check on our cholesterol level while getting flu vaccine (H1N1) for the whole family. I also did my annual pap smear test on the same day. 

While waiting for another appointment at 12 noon at the same place but different department, we took a quick break at the Coffee Bean cafe and had this. Yummeh!

that piece of cake is so velvety it melts in your mouth ermmm!

After our tummies had been refilled, went up the dermatology department and my wandering eyes couldn't help noticing this round white objects being displayed in the glass cabinet outside the waiting area. What do you think it is? Eheee!

breast implant anyone? macam-macam saiz adaa... :P

After appointments done for the day, went to Al-Rawsha restaurant in bulatan Kg Pandan and had lamb mandy for early dinner. Kenyang buntat sampai ke malam okeh! Though the menu is super-nice, tak boleh makan selalu because of its high content in cholesterol heee! 

chicken mandy for Kak Long and little Bee

lamb mandy for the rest

appetiser... hummus with roti naan

 their tomato sambal sauce...dah lupa nama dia

tabbouleh...some sort of salad

last but not least mint pistachio ice-cream for dessert though the minty taste is a bit strong for our liking but OK lah..

The end of story. Hope you like watching the pictures he he he!

Distasteful

I love jokes. I can take all kinds of jokes be it dirty or delightful or even practical just as long as no one/ego gets hurt in the process its fine by me. You can find a lot of these stuff on the internet and by virtue of that on facebook the most popular social network site ever created to interact virtually with your friends wherever they are at the touch of a keypad.


The adage laughter is the best medicine as told by many is an effective way to reduce stress at work or mild depression suffered due to prolonged negative feelings. Have you seen how the faces of these stressed out people lit up after a good joke? It breaks all form of barrier and can even relieve emotional pain and therefore bring greater happiness. Such is the wholesome benefit of good old fashioned jokes.


However, I can't say the same about bad jokes. Really bad jokes with bad aftertaste. The ones that degrade certain races, gender and of course religion. When told in a certain way it can be downright crude and offensive. More so if the jokes are supposed to instill morality and religiousness but the message somewhat backfired. I just couldn't fathom such jokes no matter how hard I try to make my laugh muscles move!

One such example below.

Ali seorang anak murid darjah 6 bertanya kepada ustazah semasa kelas pendidikan Islam...

Ali : Ustazah, boleh tak kita pegang babi?

Ustazah: tak boleh sebab babi tu najis mughallazah..

Ali : Kalau tengok je babi tu berdosa tak ustazah?

Ustazah: Kalau tengok je tak lah berdosa..

Ali : Kalau kita tengok perempuan yang tak tutup aurat, berdosa tak ustazah?

Ustazah: Kalau perempuan yang tidak menutup aurat, kita tengok mestilah BERDOSA!.. kalau dah tengok pun berdosa apatah lagi kalau kita pegang lagi lah berdosa Ali..

Ali : Ooh maknanya perempuan yg tak tutup aurat tu lebih teruk dari babi tu la ye ustazah?

Ustazah: erkk..!!

Ali: kalau lebih teruk dari babi tu kategori najis ape ustazah???

See what I mean? I bet this joke was written by overzealous holier-than-thou ulamak wannabe. Sigh!

Ermm on second thought maybe I should just chill out coz its just a damn joke right? Kinda feeling stressed out lately. :B

Jetlag!

My current listening pleasure at the moment. I wish blogger has apps so I could just click LIKE on this post but hey don't make me stop you from jetlagging ahaks!

Not another boring weight-loss story

Cringe for all I care. This weighty issue has bugged me ever since my teeth started to grow in my mouth and I had developed a liking for food just like vampires crave human blood. And my body needs food to membesar bagai johan but over the years, this over-penchant for food has taken its toll on my body. I did grew up as a johan but not johan in academic department la kan or whatever. Just an average achiever. 

Truth be told, I was never a fat kid during my formative and adolescense years but my weight soon grows rapidly after the birth of my eldest child. Isn't this a very lame excuse? Women always blame childbirth the main cause for mutating their then perfect hourglass Jennifer Lopez (yezza?) figure into out of shape jumbo Adibah Noor. I was a whopper particularly in the 3 serangkai section - you women should know which section I was talking about right?  The baby fat is still stubbornly stored somewhere there...sangat susah nak tanggal okeh!

from rear view - humongous! 

Long story short, I went for a full medical check up late last year and that's when I received the wake up call I badly needed. I remembered the physician, a lady doctor told me point blank after she looked through the result and she was so straightforward about it. 

"KC (of course that's not my real name hehe), I'm a bit concerned about your LDL level (bad cholesterol)...it is quite high...at your age, this is an indication that you should tone down your food intake...you should take less sugar, less sodium, less fat, less oily stuff because if you keep on eating what you're eating now and you don't exercise at all, I will not be surprised if you have a heart attack in less than 2 years!!"

Pangggg! I felt a sharp pain on my face like I was being slapped hard. All this while I still think that I can devour whatever I want and not have health problems but in actual fact I do. I was just in BIG denial. And it took a warning like that to make me realize that I need to live healthily onward and this time its for real. No more excuses. No more empty promises and resolutions. I have to have control over what I eat and the most important thing I had to start exercise damn seriously. 

So early this year, I started aerobic exercise 3-4 times a week at the local gym and at the same time alter my diet by having healthy food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Slowly, my weight and size decreases though it took some time to show. Over the months when compliments began pouring in from neighbours and friends alike only then I realize I had indeed lost weight and I was so freaking happy when I got to wear my old jeans which have been neatly stucked and discolored in yellowish mildew in the lower corner of my wardrobe for a very long time. The best part is my stamina has increased tremendously and I seldom feel lethargic or drowsy during the day coz I feel fit and recharged all the time. Of course, I do reward myself every once a week or so with foods I love coz there are times when I have cravings. It was also this year that I started to participate actively in marathon or walkathon event just for the fun of it and at the same to push my limit and endurance.

I was at my heaviest 78kg last year (when I weighed in for the medical checkup) and now at the time I'm pen-typing this, my weight has dropped to 65kg! Awesome indeed though I still have more kgs to lose but I'm not complaining. Slowly but surely I will achieve my target hopefully by end of this year. If it doesn't turn out like I expected I would still be proud of myself coz I did it. My way.

*KC hasn't posted latest picture of herself coz she wants to flaunt it when she lose another 5 kg..*

Self-explanatory

While waiting for my sister in law being admitted in Sg Buloh hospital a couple of weeks back, I happen to see this quote appropriately displayed on the reception counter at the ER section.

*in case you haven't heard, the government hospital is famously known for its longggg queve!* :P

Shout out loud

I had just reactivated this blog and already I hate blogger's new setting! Has it been that long? Its gonna take a while for me to get used to this new layout. Sheesh!

In the meantime, stay tuned! I'll be back!

Qurbani

*seperti biasa gambar ini dicilok dr pakcik gugel*

Wishing all my muslim readers Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha. Cuti 3 hari straight tu taw! Err tahun ni ada buat korban tak?

Potong Stim

I'm currently in a nothing-better-to-do-right-now mode to come up with this masterpiece (no sniggering please!). I was watching some monster movies (hurmm cant remember which one) some days ago when the sudden thought of myself in the same predicament as were the characters in the movies sprang to mind. Yeah, I could be that absorbed. Totally.

But my over imaginative mind has decided to twist the story. Here goes.

Instead of running for life, I would take the heroic are-you-out-of-your-mind act of fighting back the aliens. Yeah, those big demon-looking giant aliens that really pissed me off. They killed all my neighbours, friends and foes (God forbids in real life....) but my family were spared. Kinda like War Of The World eh?

While we were running here and there looking for shelters amidst the ruins that were once a progressive city that placed the world's tallest building, we stumbled into this odd looking rundown shophouse and decide to go in there. We were dead tired and hungry from all that running. Little Bee was tugging my shirt and asking for milk. I had to carry him all along and my back was hurting. He must have weighed an easily 20kgs. Kak Long and Kak Ngah kept murmuring they were starving and hubby was badly wounded.

I look around the room and saw a broken refrigerator. What the heck. There could be food in there. I scavenged it and found some leftover chicken rice and pepperoni pizza. I quickly handed them to my daughters who were clearly starving. They gorged on them immediately. I looked around again and saw a tin of nesphray milk. Ah, milk for Little Bee at last. Though the date on the milk tin is already 3 months expired, I don't really care. All I want is to give it to Little Bee. Little Bee was so happy to see milk that his eyes sparkle. To him, it was the best drink ever.

The End.

*Okay, I know the story ended very abruptly but my mind went blank suddenly and I just didnt know what to write next. Ok tak reason bangang ni? Sorry to dissappoint you readers :P

P/S: err maybe there's a sequel coming on...watch this space!

Drivers from hell

*pic snagged from google*

Every now and then we all see moron drivers in some situation or another. Sometimes it makes your blood pressure boil up to its maximum limit. Sometimes all you could do is just shake your head in disbelief. Sometimes you automatically spew out expletives. Yeah, I sometimes tend to do that (say the F word) but only without the presence of children on board. Self-control is the word here.

Let me tell you a bit about these so called drivers from where I live. Here, you could always witness some F1 driver wannabes recklessly speeding on a narrow two-way roads with total disregards to the safety of other road users. Not just drivers even motorcyclists are not spared. These speed devils are a sneaky lot. They would cut you abruptly when you're making turns to right or left lane without giving signals and expect you to give way to them. And if you do happen to knock into them and it is not entirely your fault you'd still get the blame!

There are also drivers who do not park properly. I just don't know what to make of these inept species. Some like to double park on a very cramped road and would not budge when they see oncoming cars or cars from behind struggling to move past them. What can you really do in that tight situation? Me? If I managed to get out of it without a scratch, I'd just give them that jeling-jeling look lah what else. You think I dare to flash my middle finger and get into trouble afterwards? What if they are hidden psycopath road bully? Sape nak tolong kan huhu.

And how many times have you seen a car conveniently parked outside its designated parking spot? Sometimes these moron do not bother to adjust their car to fit nicely into that parking spot making the remainder spot useless for other drivers. And what makes me so damn geram is when the car happens to be a minuscule Kancil! Grrr! 

And don't even get me started on people who do not signal. Do they really think that people can read minds so they don't see the benefit of giving signal when making turns. There are also others who have the audacity to think its pointless to give signals when there are no vehicles behind or from the opposite direction and that its also permissible to run the red lights when there's no oncoming cars. I find these judgement call a grave error. What if there's a motorcylist or pedestrian or cyclist suddenly appears out of nowhere and crossing the road? Do they ever think about this possibility? I doubt so.

What about those coming from side lanes and not slowing down a bit to enter the main lanes. These drivers certainly expect us from the main lanes to slower down for them and some don't even bother to signal. I've had my fair share of dreadful encounters with this type of drivers and they always give me a fright. Sheesh!

How about lorries and buses? Huh, that's another story. Whatever it is, I don't want to be sandwiched in between them, beside them, in front of them or behind them. Whenever I see these monsters approaching by I'd just speed up!

Opss hehe.

80's mania

As I was driving my daughter for her tuition last night, this song was aired on Lite.FM channel and suddenly it brought back those fond memories.

Yeah, who could've believe I was young, reckless and carefree back in those days. Perghhh!

Googled for the wrong reason

Of late, there seems to be a sudden surge of visitors on my blog traffic feed. That's weird coz I know my blog isn't that popular or fascinating (very far from it) and the only people who may read this blog are probably friends/acquaintances from my facebook friendlist. I'm pretty sure of it ever since I changed my previous url to the current one. 

Then it dawned on me that the very reason they were here is because of the recent posting on General Kenako. Yup, just google up that name and it will lead you to this very lame blog. So to those visitors who expect some kind of factual information on General Kenako, I would just like to say this - KORANG SUDAH KENA!  Hurmm, come to think of it, maybe the name Kenako itself was originated from those words? LOL! 

Well, it turned out that General Kenako was really a marketing gimmick from the fast food chain, Nando's! And thanks to the management of Nando's for enlightening that up. It sure solved the mind-boggling puzzle haha! And I seriously thought of taking the advice of this gal to ask for a free meal from Nando's in exchange for the free publicity on my blog. He he!

Well, that was last month's news.