Chilling out on a Monday!

Last Monday, Erin (one of my best friends) and I went to watch SALT preview at Midvalley Megamall. How do I get the tickets? Rezeki beb! Pure luck! A friend of mine, Sue won the tickets through Sony Malaysia Contest on facebook but she couldn't go. So, the two tickets were offered to me. Straight after work, I went to Erin's place, picked her up, and beat the traffic to arrive on time. Actually, Erin was the one driving... I let her drove my car.... for sure we arrived on time...:)..  ....

We were quite hungry (very.. actually) when we arrived so we headed to The Spaghetti Farm, a newly opened Italian restaurant in Midvalley. We immediately fell in love with the menu... not only because of the food they served, but also the prices! It was really reasonable!

All these for RM25 ; spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti bolognese, mushroom soup, tomato soup, green tea and coke.

The taste? Quite good! We enjoyed ourselves there, eating and taking pictures.....

After that, we went to watch the movie preview.

Cliche babe - Villians: Russian Secret Agents or Spies... North Korean military - portrayed as merciless and heartless... The Good Guys? Of course, The CIA and...... guess who? Wanna know.. watch the movie....

The plot/story line is quite interesting. No one knows for sure who the traitor is...and we couldn't justify SALT's actions until everything is revealed towards the end...

Most of the main characters in the movie are potrayed as cunning and pretentious..However, the characters in this movie are not well-developed.. Hoping that SALT 2 would be better... if there is...

There are quite a number of violent scenes in this movie... that made both of us, Erin and me, closed our eyes a few times... 'tak sanggup nak tgk'.....we are the kind & soft-hearted people.. you see...

Rating? Hmmm... I would say...3.5/5

Looking forward to watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice... Care to join me?

Can you trick your taste buds? Check it out!

This morning, while I was searching for some teaching materials on the net, I came across an interesting article about our taste buds. After 31 years of living on earth, I just got to know that we can trick our taste buds. How? Read this article written by Nick Somoski on Helium

Is it possible to trick the taste buds?

The taste buds are one of the body's most peculiar features. It's almost hard to believe that these little "dots" on our saliva-filled tongues allow us to differentiate between the tastes of the foods we eat. But, it's true. Taste buds are the tiny organelles on our tongues that pick up the flavors in food and drink. They tell our brain what flavor we're tasting, which essentially tells us what we're eating and whether we like it or not.

But just like a smart magician, the taste buds can be tricked. While they do tell sweet from sour and hot from cold, taste buds can often confuse these aspects of taste.

It's often said that our sense of smell is directly related to our sense of taste. Our nose is the first thing that convinces our taste buds what the food tastes like. An experiment can be done to prove this, with 2 simple foods that have completely different tastes and smells.

Let's use two foods that have strong, completely different flavors: onions and lemons. Onions tend to have no distinct flavor but a very strong smell, while lemons have a very strong, sour flavor. What you do is take a piece of both, put the onion as close to your nose as possible, smell it, and put the lemon into your mouth. As you eat the lemon, you'll probably notice something strange: it tastes like onion.

What you have done is something magnificent - you have actually tricked your taste buds. The fact is, smell is directly related to taste. Your nose picked up the smell of onion, and although you were eating the lemon, the onion smell translated into an onion taste.

Our taste buds don't have very good resolution. At best, they're able to distinguish between bitter or sweet, salty or sour, or savory. Our noses are much better. They can extricate over 10,000 different smells. In fact, many things we think we're tasting are actually scents passing through our nose to our mouths and into our taste buds.

By holding the onion up to your nose, while tasting the lemon, we are able to prove that we're fooling our brain into thinking that the lemon tastes like onion, and that our taste buds are in fact being fooled.

In another instance, tricking our taste buds can be purely psychological. You can convince yourself that you hate a certain food, even without having tasted it. Our brains our convincing our taste buds that we don't like that food and that we don't have to taste it to find out. But, it's nothing more than psychological. By this, what we see is what is tricking our taste buds into thinking something.

Tricking the taste buds can become useful in many occasions. It's a fun thing to do and an interesting thing to know. Indeed, it is possible to fool our taste buds. If you'd like to try it, go ahead. I don't see any harm in doing so - of course, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to do the lemon/onion experiment all day long, as this can do serious damage to your taste buds. Simply enough, it is possible to trick the taste buds.

Hmmmm.... Can I trick my taste buds to taste lemon like KFC? I wonder... Dare to try?

Memories.. memories...

As I was editing my photo album last night, I came across pictures of my days in JB. It sparks some 'sweet and sour' memories of my experience teaching international students in JB. I have learned a lot while I was there.

Teaching international students is quite challenging. As they come from different countries and have different cultures, you need to be very patient and must always equip yourself with various strategies in teaching. You may also need to teach them the cultures here. They may ask you lots of questions and you should be prepared to answer them.  Sometimes, a simple & straightforward answer might also work, you know! No need for lengthy explanations...

There were some sour days or moments while I was teaching them and I thought I would never miss any of these days... whaaaay... I was wrong. Today, looking at the pictures, I truly miss all of them... Some of the sour days or moments have turned into sweet memories... and I do miss organising field trips for them. They would get very excited when it comes to field trips.. who wouldn't, anyway?

This picture was taken during the field trip to Tanjung Piai, Johor. Which one is me? The one with the blue shirt and light blue veil.

In the bus...

The nature and me... What was I looking at? That one.. I don't remember...

Guys, cherish all the moments in life... Stop waiting for the one moment in time that will change your life... There would be times when sour days arrive at your doorstep... don't be too upset...  Learn how to handle it... Coz it might turn to be one of your sweetest memories... You'll never know!

Flavour of Life

Hi Guys! First of all, thanks for spending your precious time reading my post... This is my first, by the way..

The taste of life... hmmmm... what is it.. ya? Bitter? Sweet? Sour? Spicy? What I know best is the taste of my favourite ice-cream, Strawberry & Chocolate.. definitely sweet and yummy! But do you think your life is always 'sweet' and 'eelogofusciouhipoppokunurious'?

Lately, there's a lot of things happening in my life. At the moment, my mother is still in the hospital, due to stroke. I can't forgive myself for being ignorant about the symptoms of stroke.. She had the symptoms a few days earlier.. but I didn't notice it...  I spend nights crying and was getting quite vulnerable.. there were times when my eyes became sensitive to the lights... But I can't let her see this... This would definitely 'add salt to the wound' as she is already upset with her health condition....

Then, I started motivating myself. Things happen for a reason. God never wants us to give up on life. Asking 'why me?' won't solve any problems or relieve any 'pain'.. Patience & Perseverance are greatly needed to face challenges in life. When things get 'tough', we pray to God to show us the 'way' and ease our 'pain'... We ask for His forgiveness... But ... How many times do we do this when we were happy? When life goes on 'smoothly'?

Taking things positively in life is also important. A quotation by Helen Keller has always been my inspiration during tough times; "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." When we face challenges in life, we are actually given the chance to strengthened our soul and become a better person. Our will-power is tested and it can be stronger each time it is tested. As we become stronger, the chances of success is greater. Look at the life of some successful people, for example, J.K Rowling. She was once diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide before becoming famous with her Harry Potter series.

Life has varieties of 'flavour'... Taste them with passion and wisdom... The more flavour you taste, the more 'acumen' you will become... but remember, too much of sweet things may bring you 'diabetes', and too much of spice may bring you 'stomach ache'!