Meme: Save Yvonne's Sight

I was not ready to come back from my break (having too much fun in Facebook) but after being tagged by Ruby Ahmad for the Save Yvonne's Sight Meme, I decided to return for a brief moment to share this story.

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Yvonne Foong Ming Niang received 'Her World Young Achiever 2008' (read here) award early this year, for she has achieved more than most people have done in a lifetime.

Her continuing fight against neurofibromatosis (NF) is legendary. Neurofibromatosis (NF) causes tumours to keep growing inside her body.

Yvonne has received a long list of awards for her tireless work to go on living & help others along the way, for she is a fighter, a feisty wonderful young lady.

To know more about Yvonne, here are some write ups:

Marina Mahathir has blogged about Yvonne : please read this

Sharon Bakar has also blogged about her plight before : please read this.

Yvonne is scheduled for an operation between 1st - 4th December 2009. She has lost her hearing and now faces losing her sight too. The cost of her surgery is USD44,000 or RM154,770 and cost of staying in hospital for two weeks is USD915 or RM3,219. She has to raise the funds by herself.

To date, she has raised about RM10,000 of this and is hoping to raise the rest by republishing her book I'm Not Sick; I'm Just a Bit Unwell in English and Chinese. The books are now available in Malaysian bookshops and from her web site store. She is also selling T-shirts at bazaars and via her web site store. You can read about her surgery and donate to her fund here

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You can also help by sending on this meme. If you do, please follow these meme rules:

1. Create a blog entry titled "Meme: Save Yvonne's Sight"

2. List three things you love to see. Add in the picture of Yvonne's book cover. The URL is http://www.yvonnefoong.com/images/banner/my-story.jpg

3. End with the line, "Yvonne Foong is in danger of losing her eyesight thanks to neurofibromatosis (NF). Please find out how you can help her by visiting her blog at http://www.yvonnefoong.com.

4. Tag 5 blog friends. Be sure to copy the rules, OK?

5. If you have a Facebook account, please check out Ellen's new invention, a "feme" pronounced FEEM, a meme designed for Facebook here. And if you want to blog about NF, that would be great too!

Three things I love to see:
(not in any particular order)

1 People learning to live with each other

2 Loved ones (family and friends)

3 Beauty of nature and all it has to offer

Unfortunately, I am not going to pin this on anyone (breaking one of the rules of this meme). I have not been in the blogsphere for some months and am unsure as to who is still active with blogging. So please, if anyone out there who would like to meme or feme this, feel free.

Yvonne Foong is in danger of losing her eyesight thanks to neurofibromatosis (NF).
Please find out how you can help her by visiting her blog at http://www.yvonnefoong.com

On a break

Apologies for the long absence. After many attempts of trying to write Part 2 of My French Connection, I have decided not to pressure and force myself to do it until I am good and ready. For those who have been waiting for it, a thousand apologies. I promise to get back to it as soon as I can. Summer is keeping me busy with other things.

See you soon ...

My French Connection - Part 1

I keep telling myself to update my blog but everytime I sit down to do it, my mind goes blank. I was at the point of just shutting down my blog so that it does not have to worry me. I contemplated putting up another sabbatical sign. Then I thought, let's just write anything that comes to mind (as I have been told many times). So, let's see where this goes.

What have I been up to besides keeping busy in the garden? A road trip. More like a pilgrimage and short vacation rolled into one. I felt I needed to go on this pilgrimage for many reasons, one of it was to establish connection with people in the community. See, I am new to the American community here in Germany. I found, in the past, that when I get involved in something at the church it is usually a stepping stone to less lonely Sundays. From there, I get to move on to other activities and soon I feel part of a community. I was so used to sitting alone in a corner of a church that I continued the same pattern yesterday. And one of my new friends (from the pilgrimage) asked me why did I sit alone and away, like as though I was punishing myself. As much as I wanted to join that new friend in a seat behind, it was out of habit that I preferred my quiet corner (and admittedly, I did not want to impose on that person).

Anyway, our pilgrimage started on a Tuesday afternoon. When I arrived at the parking lot of the church, it seemed like everyone was just mingling around and chatting. I thought "well, that's good, I can go put my bags in the bus immediately and find a good seat." The minute I parked, it looked as though everyone moved to the bus immediately. Darn! I thought maybe I should have drove by the bus, dropped my bags off and then looked for parking. :D

When I finally got my luggage bag into the bus and took my hand luggages with me, I found that there were limited seats at the bottom of the double-decker bus assigned to our parish (we were sharing this bus ride with two other parishes). I would have loved those seats with the table facing other passengers. Then I thought, "it is going to be a long journey and I will need to stretch out. I cannot imagine stretching out my legs on the table. That would be rude." So up I went in search for the ultimate butt comforter. I found mine. We had enough seats in the bus where most of us could each take two seats. That was good enough for me. After checking my car for the umpteenth time to make sure it is locked (did the same thing with the house till it drove me crazy with sweat!), up the bus and eventually off we went to the next parish to pick up the rest of the group.

At that stop, while everyone was getting their luggage in the compartment below, a few of us ran off to Burger King to get some bites for the start of our long journey. We left about 6:00pm, I think. The bus driver made several stops along the way and as it went on, I got to know more people around me. Mostly, from around my seat where we shared cookies and chips. By the time it was 12 midnight, the bus became very quiet. Most of us were asleep except for some of us (namely me) who found it hard to get some shut eye. I occupied myself with a movie on my Ipod. I had to watch "Mamma Mia" - I needed something light and happy and musical. The sad part about watching that movie in a quiet bus, I could not belt out the songs as they sang. That was excrutiating! :) Then I thought, maybe if I listened to some songs, that would put me to sleep. Nope! did not work as well. Not a restful sleep anyway. It was more like a repeat of 40-winks session. And each time that I did get to doze off, the bus stopped at some station. Mind you, I never waste a stop. No siree. That is when I dash to the bathroom and then get myself a cup of hot coffee or cocoa. By the way, listening to those songs started taking me back to some memories of the past. Oh yeah, let me tell you that is not a great way to sleep when you start thinking about lost family members, lost loves and funny moments.

We finally arrived at our first destination at 6:00am, one hour too early. It was L'Espace Bernadette Soubirous in Nevers, France. By the way, as a young 14 year old girl, Bernadette Soubirous had 18 visions of the Blessed Lady in a grotto in the outskirts of Lourdes. To read more, go here.

This is a home reserved for pilgrims who come individually or in organized groups and individuals wishing to make a retreat, a spiritual stop. After the gates opened at 7:00am, we got to freshen up in the bathrooms and headed for breakfast. We had cereal, cold cuts, french bread (duh!), hard boiled eggs, butter and a selection of jams. One thing that was odd at breakfast was the way they served coffee. One of the ladies in our group looked for coffee cups and found them in the cabinet below the buffet table but one the helpers in that place said we should use bowls there were set out. I thought that was strange but we just followed her suggestion. So, I had cereal in a bowl followed by coffee in a bowl.

Maybe that sweet lady thought that the French coffee cups were just too little for the American pilgrims. :D

After breakfast, we attended mass celebrated by two priests who travelled with us. Thereafter, we took pictures of the place, walked the gardens and bought some souvenirs. I believe by 11:00pm, we were back on the bus and on the way to our next stop, Avignon. Since Avignon was about 6 hours away, we had to stop for lunch. We were supposed to stop at a McDonald's ... and we did. Only thing is, we saw a lovely restaurant called Buffalo Grill. Needless to say, almost half of our group ended up in that restaurant. Since most of the pilgrims came with families, there were a few 'strays' like singles or married people who came solo. So we, approximately three of us, ended up taking a table and tried to figure out the menu in French.

To be continued ...

A Clueless Gardener in a real garden

Spring is in the air and the birds and bees doing what they need to do; as nature intended. There is a distinct sound of spring for me - people gardening, lawn mower going off somewhere, and chatter coming from neighbours nearby as they sit around in their porches.

As spring broke, I began to see the garden slowly come to life. It was a welcoming sight after a dreadful winter. Then I started worrying - what do I trim and what do I throw or pull out? I was still learning how to keep a garden back in Leesville and now I was suddenly thrown into a smorgasbord of flora (compared to what I had back home in my virgin garden). I was afraid I may pull out and discard the wrong plants. It was time to ask for help. I usually try not to bother the landlords because of my lack of fluency of the language (otherwise they would have had me hanging out in their apartment from the time we met in December). However, I did not worry so much when I found out that their son, their walking translator, was around. Eager to help me out, they were there the next day after I made that gardening-911 call.

The son took care of cleaning out some icky green stuff from the top of the pond while his parents showed me what needs trimming. Luckily, I sought their help. What I thought were weeds turned out to be a bed of beautiful tiny blue flowers.

The parents trimmed and threw away lots of weeds and dead leaves. I kept telling them that I will do the rest (with the help of Jochen, the interpreter) and just show me what I need to do and take care of. Either they did not trust this clueless gardener or they just loved what they were doing. Within two hours, they had done half the garden.

They left behind a green house too and initially I thought there were weeds taking over that place. It turned out to be parsley! I told you I was a clueless gardener. Anyway, suddenly the mother had a bright idea. She said "let's go shopping for some salad to plant." Jochen, of course, translated and went on to say that his mother would like take me to the store where we can get them. The father wanted to help me get my vegetable patch going. I thought Jochen was going to accompany us but learned that he will stay back and help his father clean up more. Just then, I panicked and wondered where is the thunderstorm when you need it. I could not avoid this trip to the store and did not want to offend her. So, I got into the car with her and off we went.

It wasn't too bad. I managed to speak some German. But boy! it took some effort. When we got to the store, it got a little easier. I was so captivated by the beauty around me. All I kept saying was "schoen" (beautiful). That alone killed some good minutes and saved me from struggling to form a sentence. After we bought what she needed, she paid (told me it was on her), we got in the car with our prized salads and headed home. When we arrived at the house, almost everything looked trimmed and clean. The biggest surprise - they got the fountain working. It was such a welcoming sight.

After four weeks of taking care of the rest (a little more pruning, trimming and mowing the lawn), I have this garden now. (If you are on my list in Facebook, you would have seen these already).

I am now going to sit in my porch and enjoy a cup of tea.

Home Sweet Home

It was 7:00pm. I looked out and was glad to finally see light at that hour - a sure sign we are moving into spring. Suddenly it brought back memories of my days when I worked in Kuala Lumpur. That was the hour I would be on my way home on the KTM commuter train, just about a halt or two before mine, Telok Gadong.

There was a sense of relief to be away from the maddening city crowd. Within an hour, I was in a much more easy-going atmosphere. The walk from the halt to my house took about 5 minutes - 5 minutes of getting in touch with local feel. From the sounds of the crows perched on the electrical lines and around the sundry shop/mini-market to the chatter of people in the restaurant having dinner.

Then, I finally arrive at my gate. Back then, it was safe that we did not need to lock it all day. Our dogs did the job of warding off strangers. So it saved me precious seconds that would take to unlock the gate. My specific memory of this hour was after my niece was born. My mum helped look after her during the day. I looked forward to returning everyday - not only to be in the comforts of home but to play with my niece. I remember how her face lighted up when she saw me at the door. When she started walking, it was such a delight to watch her use the rails to help her down two steps from the dining room. Once she had her footing in the living room, she would run over to me for a hug and kiss. Then, I would proceed to my mum's room, sit on the floor, chat with her for awhile and watch the little girl's antics. If my brothers were home, they would soon join us in the room.

When I first left Malaysia, those memories kept me going yet made me feel sad - I was missing home. These days, they just make me feel nostalgic for the days gone by. Just one memory of coming home at 7:00pm leads to other memories of simpler days.