Green yap

Earth Day was few days back on 23rd of April- whether you realize it or not and I urged my pupils to tune in Discovery and National Geographic channel for information and who knows the topic might pop up during Johor state level English Carnival which is the end of this month. HBO even aired 'An Inconvenient Truth' - the movie documentary on climate crisis by Al Gore and it was an eye opener. My younger brother who before this kept saying that the green house effect is just a myth people created was silenced. The earth is not getting any cooler at the rate of the carbon dioxide emission we are having now.

One of the part that saddens me was about the polar bear. Some of the polar bears were found dead. Drowned. Picture that. They are known for their ability to swim but due to the melting ice they have to swim for miles to the next icy surface that they could land on.

This is one of the snippets featured in the movie-documentary and Futurama


On Thursday I read an article in NST about a man who refused to use the disposable wooden chopstick that the masses of stalls are using and opted to carry his portable chopstick whenever he's eating out. He was given the weird look by his friends but his action was justified. That was his move to save the environment. Of course, wood = tree, which made me feel bad to forget to bring my chopstick to Sushi King yesterday.

Few months back, an aunt was applauding me for refusing more plastic bag at a well known bakery. She refused it too. It made me feel bad because her reason and my reason were totally different. She was on her move to cut her plastic bag usage while I... was actually dining in at the bakery with my sister and sister in law. Well you know how things go there, the more bread you buy, the more plastic bags you get. Then again I found myself still using and accepting more plastic bags from grocery stores X_X

One of the advantages of teaching science is that I could at least tell them about the environment. They were laughing when I told them about CFC from air cond and refrigerator but was not doing so the day after - thanks to the Self Access Centre at school. They were googling it after the lesson. We learned about renewable and non-renewable energy and from what I heard some was even being scolded when they told their moms to cover the pans and wok while cooking. Well that is one of the way to save natural gas. Of course la some are too strait laced that they were asking their mothers not to even lift the lid to stir the food. Kids. I can't imagine what will happen if I teach them about solar cooking.

A pupil was asking me if I am an environmentalist.
That certainly gave me a pause.
I don't recycle - I don't even know where the recycling centre is, I have loads of plastic bags at home and most of the trash at home is burnt at my backyard. The cans and bottles are thrown at the huge container managed by SWM.

What did I do to save the environment?
What do you do to save the environment?

It will go to our kids and grandchildren in the future.

p.s: It's my mom's birthday today!!

I Could Breathe!

Neti Pot.

What is a neti pot?
Well for an explanation, go ahead here. It is an ancient technique believed to relieve sinusitis and headache due to sinus. Of course la, I have sinus and nearly a month watching that particular episode which is last Tuesday, I went to buy a small pot. Well, its a set of creamer pot with 2 sugar containers that cost RM9. I'm doing it every morning and the change that I see is that I finally could breathe with 2 unblocked nostrils in the morning - usually I ended up breathing using 1 and spending my time blowing my nose nearly every morning, not to mention the morning sneeze. My brother, A'an is doing it too and I have to say, breathing using 2 nostrils is a novelty before. I'm loving my nostril pot, wahahaha.

Basikal Saya

Saya ada sebuah basikal. Basikal saya berwarna merah. Pada asalnya saya mahu membeli basikal yang berwarna hitam kerana rupanya amat bergaya. Tetapi basikal hitam itu mempunyai... (dang, what's the word for feature?) ciri-ciri yang kurang daripada basikal merah yang dipamerkan di hadapan kedai itu. Selain itu kos penyelenggaraan basikal hitam itu lagi tinggi dari basikal merah tersebut. Jadi akhirnya saya membuat keputusan untuk membeli basikal merah. Tetapi, beberapa hari kemudian, Dr. Oz di dalam rancangan 'Oprah Winfrey Show' menyatakan membawa basikal dengan tidak menggunakan tempat duduk yang khas boleh menjejaskan 'kesihatan' lelaki dan perempuan. Dang! Tak kisahlah. Sekali sekala tak salah kan?

p.s: Jika ada tersilap tatabahasa dan penggunaan bahasa, harap maaf :D

Aging gracefully

How many people around you that you know looks way younger than their real age? Well I know one and he looks young because he got the young genetic. Well, okay, he's my older brother who since I was in secondary school friends kept thinking him as my younger brother :P

All that aside,

I LOVE WATCHING OPRAH!!!

Before this, I did think anyone is turning old when and if they enjoy watching Oprah just proven how ignorant could I be. I learnt lots of thing watching Oprah, other than reading of course. Today, Oprah galore on Hallmark. If Starworld kept having Heroes marathon - which I found kind of tiring due to the outcome of the second season, a dose of Dr. Oz on Oprah opened my eyes.

Of course the show is about health, life, entertainment, information, books and many more. Do you know that you can do something for kids with autism? Or do you know that having a nose bidet using a neti pot could help you with sinus problems? Or doing a 'stamp test' could help in detecting E.D. problems? Or that swimming in the Amazon river could cause a type of fish swim into you and then grow in you and the only way to get it out is by surgery? I wouldn't know that.

Well most of the show today were about ageing. How you live your life would reflect how well you may age. The main reason people does not age gracefully is because of stress (who doesn't have them?), too much sugar in the diet, no exercising, smoking, drinking and lack of sleep. Well those are the points that I managed to catch up on. No problem for me in the smoking and drinking sector since I don't do any of them.

I know everyone wants to age gracefully and look younger than their calendar age. I know I want to be healthy when I am old so... I will try my best to:

1. Manage stress wisely - who says working with kids is easy?
   
2. Keep doing my exercise daily - The Swiss ball workout, weights, crunches (thanks to my fitness instructor cousin who kept on yapping me to do workout).
   
3. Eat healthily - Less red meat in my diet and less oil except olive oil, more vegetables and enough rice.
   
4. Get enough sleep - which is mostly from 9pm to 5am (that's 8 hours)

Since March this year, I'm starting this routine and still doing it, but as my cousin said, it's not getting slender being the goal. From researches that I read in the papers and online, being thin doesn't always mean being healthy and being fat doesn't always mean being unhealthy. The key here is being healthy and that's what I am trying to be.

p.s: Do you know that lifting weights could help you to prevent osteoporosis? More the reason for me to love my dumbbells, hehehe.