I am still learning how to cook
I saw an interesting recipe today.
I have never tried using sour cream in my cooking all my life. Tomorrow I will go buy a pack of sour cream to try this recipe.
You see, I am still learning … !
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Sunset-Is the town on fire? ( Poem- a haiku)
The sun is setting,
burning in the horizon.
before it exits.
My nephew took this picture in Ireland. It looks like a fire in the horizon!
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COVID-19, new social and environmental phobias.
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Try not to use the lift; confined space, poor ventilation! Let walk up, it's healthier!😐 Try to avoid crowded area; social distancing, let not go at peak hours! ******* Sigh, these people on the next table are talking so loud and non- stop! (They took off their masks because they are supposed to be EATING!) Let move to another table further away! Avoid close contacts! *****
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The daily COVID-19 number is not receding yet.
Subconsciously, I find that I am developing new phobias.
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Gift of life: Have you donated blood before?
That year, I took a group of nursing students to a blood bank as part of haematology clinical experience. Most of them decided to donate blood that morning. I did, too, upon their persuasion.
I was ashamed to admit that it was my first time. But it was a satisfying experience to have contributed to a gift of life!
Have you donated blood before? Do you even know what blood group you belong to, in case of an emergency?
Quote:-
Donating one unit of blood may save the lives of up to three people. – the American Red Cross.
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Merging cultures, the beauty in diversity
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“I want four packets ‘nasi lemak’.
More ‘chilli and sambal please’!”
“It’s very, very ‘hot’, boy! Lu boleh tahan chilli? (you can stand the chilli?)”
“Bolih, Mak Cik, no problem!”
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Some pick with chopsticks
some with fork and spoon
or better still, with fingers
Oh, a versatile tool at hand,
only that, the food would slip
through my fingers
before they reach my mouth!
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Some are good in arts,
some in workman skills,
some have head for figures
some for business and economy.
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Over time, with adaptation
and enculturation
leading to a new cultural synthesis
in languages, pronounciations,
fashions, lifestyles, and food.
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Such is a beautiful melting pot
of differing elements
each has its own beauty and strengths
that one should respect and be respected.
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Quotes:
1. Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. ~Mahatma Gandhi
2. When everyone is included, everyone wins. ~Jesse Jackson
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I had a dream (Poem)
Last night I had a dream. I went bowling. I had many strikes and spares! Then the first thing I read this morning was ‘no dream‘! Here is my poem that echoes the song by Westlife : “I have a dream “!
I had a dream, a series of ‘things’,
to carry on in blishful blinks.
If you see the wonders, of a fairy tale,
if you see the devils, in the darkness spell.
I believe in angels, that protect us in the realm of a dream,
‘cos in a dream, a dream’s a dream…
-Serena Chen@TPTan, 23 June 2021
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Students and their emotional baggage.
I have taught diploma nursing students as well as degree and working nurses. The former group seems to have more unresolved issues than the latter. I got them to write an essay about their family and discovered the amount of emotional baggage some of them carried!
“I hate my lecturer parents! They are so strict! I have to go back home before 10.00 pm, and I can’t stay overnight at my friends’ house!” Some of the classmates agreed. But some explained that her parents were strict because they loved her! Now she is a successful entrepreneur and has teenaged children herself!
“My father used to beat us at home. He died of cancer when we were young. If God can give me my father back, I don’t mind being beaten a thousand times every day!” This girl got the whole class crying, including me! Now she is a nurse manager. She has two young boys.
Quote:
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Writing on an almost-deserted Covid-19 morning
I hung the clothes at the balcony. My family had reminded me to take my daily dose of vitamin D. But the sun was just rising. And the street lights were still on. So I stood and watched on.
A lonely bus passed by. A lonely masked passenger slept against the window. She probably could not work from home.
I heard an approaching conversation blocked by the top of a tree. It seemed loud on a silent morning. Three men and a woman walked by leisurely as if they owned the whole width of the road! They skewered to the roadside at the sound of oncoming vehicle.
I was distracted by something darting about below. Two squirrels were chasing each other playfully around the pots of plants, while the morning birds criss-crossed up above. A lonely basketball stood at a corner of the garden, untouched for many moons already!
Where are the noisy school buses and the many parent- chauffeured school children? Where are the masked traffic-minders?
And I started to write on my mobile on this Covid-19 morning.
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Covid-19 continues and the sky is crying. (poem- a haiku)
I sit in my room
the sky thunders and rumbles
as rain lashes down.
Covid-19 news
updates global statistics
of fatalities.
The sky is crying
for the sudden departures
of many loved ones.
Covid-19, the garbage truck and the reassuring smell (poem)
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It’s the garbage truck
overloading garbage spills
where comes these rubbish!
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Market and food wastes
Smell of decomposing loads
yet reassuring!
Humans seem to spew more rubbish than any other living beings on Earth!
Walking past a garbage truck or driving behind one, used to be an annoying experience.
Ironically, with Covid-19 around us, the smell seems tolerable and reassuring!
This is reassuring because loss of smell (anosmia) is one of the symptoms in diagnosing Covid-19!
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Chen Song Ping 