DanielYKL

 (Above : The Adventist Cafeteria and the half eaten bowl of Tomyam noodle)

For more than one and a half years, I have to abstain from curry or any spicy food. As I have mentioned in my previous posting, after the 33 courses of radiation from the radiotherapy treatment and few months after my surgery - I cannot take any spicy food, not even a bit of pepper as it will burn my mouth and throat. But since a month ago I begin to take spicy food again - a little at a tme.  I started off by taking something milder, like curry dhal, then gulai lemak (less chili). Then I progressed to Indian mee goreng. And as time goes by, I realized,  “hey, I can eat curry and spicy food again without burning my tongue.”  

       It’s like being released from prison, no more restriction on my choice of food - of course I still have to be careful when eating my food. Still have to chew slowly and take my time in swallowing the food. But then I can now enjoy curry mee, Hokkien mee. mee goreng, char koay teow,  otak otak, gulai lemak, gulia tumis, green curry, red curry and all the curries in the nasi kandar restaurant - and it has never tasted better! Not that I eat all those food - just mention to make my point. haha!!! But I usually go to Adventist Cafeteria where they only serve vegetarian or rather meatless dishes or I would frequent one of the many Chinese vegeterain shops around Pulau Tikus. There they serve a wide range of meatless dishes as well as curry mee, Hokkien mee, curry laksa, char hor fun and many more. If you are from Penang, try the curry mee at the vegetarian curry mee at the shop along Cantoment Road in Pulau Tikus, opposite Maybank. They even have vegetarian char siew and sotong in it, lah!!! 

            Anyway, I still do take seafood, eggs and sometimes a bit of chicken but I try to avoid red meat. Occasionally I would have a cup of coffee,  maybe about once a month. I know I shouldn’t but bad habits are hard to die. Still like the taste and aroma of a good cup of coffee once a while. Can’t cut off everything at once - I’m not a monk lah!

The General is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“OH NO!” the President exclaims. “That’s terrible!”

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”

Got it? Million > Billion>Trillion > Zillion > Brazillion!!! 

Above are some of my artwork done with Adobe Photoshop lah - hehe!!!  I took the picture with a 2 megapixels handphone camera along the Jelutong Expressway in Penang. Not bad eh! And I edited it with the little knowledge of Photoshop CS2 I know and I think it looks quite good. So I thought I would like to share it with you guys.

“NOW EVERYBODY CAN PAINT. ” - Daniel Yong

“A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” - Michelangelo

Hi to all who are interested in the Vermiculture/ Worm Compost.

If you need to get hold of some of the worms to start your own worm farm or to get the just the worm compost as fertilizer - here are some info.

My friend started this Vermiculture project about 2 years ago. And I just joined him about 3 months ago. We are not doing this as a business as in “business” - but rather as an interest.  We are cultivating the worms in his backyard.

Again what is worm composting?

Worm composting is using worms to recycle food scraps and other organic material into a valuable soil amendment called vermicompost, or worm compost. Worms eat food scraps, which become compost as they pass through the worm’s body. Compost exits the worm through its’ tail end. This compost can then be used to grow plants. To understand why vermicompost is good for plants, remember that the worms are eating nutrient-rich fruit and vegetable scraps, and turning them into nutrient-rich compost.

So if you need to buy some worms or just the compost, we will be happy to help.  Email me, danielykl@hotmail.com and i’ll get in touch with you and give you more details. By the way, the CAP is also doing this project.

It has been more than 5 months after my surgery. Things are getting better. I’m now back on normal diet - just that I try to abstain from meat. But still sometimes I have difficulty swallowing certain kind of food - especially if they are fibrous or too chunky. Anyway, I have learned how to slowly chew my food, and even when it gets stuck - I’ve found a way to slowly swallow it in. - haha!!! And the good news is that I can manage spicy food again. After the radiation from my radiotherapy last year, I could hardly eat any spicy food at all, it will really burn my mouth - not even food with pepper in it.  And now I can once again enjoy curry and sambal.  My food palate is much much better compared with the time after my radiation treatment and even before my surgery in the beginning of this year. In fact its back to normal - except for the swallowing part.

I still do cough out mucus but not that much now and have also learned how to control it.  Found a way to flush out the mucus - I would wash the edge around the stomo with cotton wool soaked with saline and at the same time while cleaning it, I let the saline drib into the stoma. And in a little while I would start coughing out the mucus and cleared the air passage. (When I say I cough, it means I cough out from the stoma - the hole in my neck, not from my mouth!) My breathing now is back to normal, except that I’m breathing through my stoma.

God will make all things beautiful again in His time. God makes everything happen at the right time. Yet none of us can ever fully understand all he has done, and he puts questions in our minds about the past and the future. I know the best thing we can do is to always enjoy life. If you have faith in God, you already have eternal life and a life to it’s fullest. Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight all your paths.

    People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Associated with Mother Teresa, however, it was adapted from The Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith (1968)
     

A CEO was interviewing people for a vice-president’s post and he decided to select the individual with the best answer to the question “how much is 2+2?” 

The engineer pulled out his slide rule, shuffled it back and forth, and finally announced: “It lies between 3.98 and 4.02”.

The mathematician said: “In two hours I can demonstrate it equals 4 with the following short proof.”

The social worker said: “I don’t know the answer, but I am glad that we discussed this important question.”

The lawyer stated: “In the case of Svenson vs the State, 2+2 was declared to be 4.” 

The stock trader asked: “Are you buying or selling?”

The accountant looked at the CEO, got out of his chair, went to see if anyone was listening at the door and pulled the drapes. Then he returned to the business owner, leaned across the desk, and said in a low voice: “What would you like it to be?”

Author and speaker Philip Yancey writes:

One day a man said to me, “You wrote a book called Where Is God When It Hurts, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t have much time to read. Can you just answer that question for me in a sentence or two?”
I thought for a second and said, “I guess I’d have to answer that with another question: ‘Where is the church when it hurts?’”