Thursday, November 27, 2008

ok ok... no more 'toys' ;)

yup, i got my macbook! ;)

i decided to go for the macbook white instead of the new macbook because the price dropped substantially and it seemed far more affordable. Also, i always liked the macbook white design better ;) so, that's what i did. i got the macbook white and for some added 'ooomph' i upgraded the RAM to 4GB ;) hehehe

anyways, like i said. 

No more toys.

Got to save more to buy my children theirs'  ;) hehehe

read between the lines ;)

Praise God!!!



Friday, November 14, 2008

My 'first baby steps'...

good thing i've got an excellent and ever-willing 'model' at my side ;)
Makes my pictures look a whole lot better than they should =)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

1 down.. a few more to go hehehe

My new toy! ;)
a few more pending...

inspired again...

Ling and i recently had the privilege of being apart of a medical camp organised by the Diocese of Sabah, i.e. through the Anglican Church, in the interiors of Telupid. And what a medical camp it was indeed!

A real eye-opener. Never been on anything like it. i mean i've definitely had my share of experiences on mission trips (blog about that some other time) but nothing involving medicine per say. And this time.. WOW! We had almost 30 medical professionals including dentists and specialists covering various fields including opthalmology and even ENT surgery. And we had so many volunteers from various backgrounds but ALL with a mind and heart to serve... God and the people.

My 'driver' was actually the previous attorney-general (a 'Datuk')... which in itself just epitomises the spirit of servanthood that was prevalent amongst the team that went. Didn't matter how 'big' or 'small' the task cos' it was clear that nothing was too 'small' for God =)

And like my 'driver' (who's really a wonderful man indeed) i met many other inspiring individuals. There were a few in particular who made a significant impression simply because they too were in the field of medicine and so i found that the manner in which they carried themselves, their philosophy, the passion... all the more compelling and inspiring.

i stood in awe at their 'energy'. Not of a physical but rather 'soul-ful' nature.

i asked myself questions that demanded some internal responses.

i asked God to build in me the characteristics that these people exemplified... and make me more and more in the image and likeness of His Son.

Not just for the sake of the people i 'see' as a doctor and the future function i would fulfill in God's kingdom for His people but really bottom line.. for myself.

As i worked alongside these marvellous individuals i was reminded again of just how much i lack and how flawed i still am. How far still the apple has fallen from the tree... if i may use the expression loosely...
A good reminder.
It's one of those things that we all need now and then. The kind of inspiration that you know, perhaps stings at first but gets you going well into the direction you should be headed.
i need those.
And during this recent medical camp (which i thoroughly enjoyed)... i got one ;)

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

a follow-up...

Believe it or not!!! Take note of the emphasised portion!

2000 B.C.
Bananas have apparently originated in Malaysia

600 B.C.
Bananas are cited in Buddhist texts

327 B.C.
Alexander the Great's army recorded for the first time in history the existence of banana crops in the indian valleys. Alexander is also credited for bringing the banana from India to the western nations.

63 B.C.
Antonius Musa - the personal doctor of the then Roman emperor Octavius Augustus - was credited for promoting cultivation of the exotic African fruit from 63 to 14 B.C.

200 A.D.
Organized banana plantations have been recorded in China

650 A.D.
Islamic conquerors helped bananas make their way to Madagascar, and then spread to the African mainland by vegetative propagation. Here in Africa many genetic mutations occurred, that produced different species of bananas. Portuguese traders then spread the fruit from Africa to the Canary Islands

1502 A.D.
The Portuguese and the Spanish are credited for bringing bananas to the Carribean and to America. According to Spanish history, Friar Tomas de Berlanga brought the first banana root stocks to the Western Hemisphere. A Chinese variety was sent to England, where it was named "Cavendish" after the Duke of Devonshire's family. This variety and its sub-groups account for much of the commercial banana cultivation. Even though several other varieties are now cultivated for commercial purpose, they only account for about 20 of 300 different species.

17th century
Its Guinean native name - "banema" - which became "banana" in English, was first found in print

1836 A.D.
The yellow sweet banana is a mutant strain of the green and red cooking bananas, discovered in 1836 by Jamaican Jean Francois Poujot. He found that in his plantations, one plant was bearing yellow fruits rather than red or green. Upon tasting the new discovery, he found it to be sweet in its raw state, without the need for cooking. He quickly began cultivating this sweet variety.

1876 A.D.
Bananas are introduced to American families as an exotic dessert. From here it will grow and become a staple fruit. They were officially introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents.

1900 A.D.
Bananas are now considered a commodity and are traded by large companies. The United Fruit Company is credited for being of the first to commercialize bananas

Thanks to new transport technologies such as refrigeration, bananas have become widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, bananas grow in most tropical and subtropical regions with the main commercial producers including Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and Ecuador.

*information courtesy of some website on bananas on the web*

Well, i guess my whole theory on the 'man watch monkey' thingy wasn't quite what i thought.
Who would have thought that it all boiled down to the plain curiosity and boldness of a farmer who was quick enough to notice and do something about the 'alien' in his plantation ;)

Monday, November 03, 2008

How did ‘we’ find out?

i find food utterly fascinating.


i mean, think about it, the next time you sink your teeth into a banana or gobble down a bowl of rice or slurp up a dish of noodles you’ve got to sit back and wonder for awhile how on earth did people find out that this was edible let alone come up with a concoction of a ‘recipe’ to make it taste so good.

Think about it.

Who ever found out that kangkung would be nice to eat (with belacan of course)? i mean the thing literally looks and smells like a ‘cousin’ to the average grass. Who was the daredevil that figured out that potatoes (the stuff that you quite literally dig out from the ground) would be so versatile in its culinary functions.
And rice!
Man, have you seen the raw form of rice? You know, 'padi'??? How in the world did people ever discover that it was edible, much more than that, come up with a means and method of processing and cooking it?
Cooking itself is such a fascinating discovery. How did we come up with the ideas of adding water to stuff and mixing them together and putting them over fires or just setting them over open flames while pouring other mixtures over them?
It’s genius!

No, it’s ingenius!

These guys/girls deserve 'Nobel prizes' each!

i’ve got to probably do some background research on some of these things… cos’ the more i think about it the more it blows my mind away.

p/s: My hypothesis about how ‘we’ (as in humans) discovered the banana was an edible fruit is that one daring individual after observing monkeys have their way with the banana and eating them decided to try it out himself and therefore discovered it to be quite the delectable fruit indeed.
Just a guess ;)