Ingredients:

2 fillets of Salmon;               3 tsp Brown Sugar

1 cup Olive Oil;                     1/4 tsp Honey (not necessary)

1/2 cup Soy Sauce;               1/4 tsp Lemon Juice

1/2 cup Mirin;                       1 tsp White Sesame

1 tsp chopped Spring Onion

To prepare, spread the fillets with some salt and leave them for 10 minutes. If the soy sauce you use is salty enough, you can skip this step then. Mix soy sauce with honey, lemon juice and mirin; you can also use sake instead if you don’t have mirin or any cooking wine.

Heat the saucepan with olive oil over high heat just to warm it up quickly. Add one tea spoon of brown sugar and stir fry it until it thickens. Turn down the heat to medium and place the fillets in the pan just to give them a nice brown crispy cover. Wail until both sides are brown and crispy, move them to a plate, as they don’t need to be well cooked at this stage. Add rest of the sauce and fillets to the saucepan and simmer for about 1o minutes to let them well absorb the sauce. Remove the fillets to the plate and add the brown sugar to the sauce left in the pan. Stir it now and then until it gets well thickened and darkened. Pour the sauce onto the fillets; add white sesame and spring onions on top to finish. Served with rice or noodles and ready you go. YUMMM!!!

Now you have two options: Weak police force and carnage OR strong police force and massacre plus criticism from all over the world.

The original picture retrieved from The Bundpic, Issue 451

When being asked by a pissed civilian in northeast London, Hackney when they would put an end to this mayhem, a man in the mask calmly gave his answer: when there is war. One could hardly expect a peaceful march merely two weeks ago that would lead to something that the entire country is now shamed of. Twenty-one years ago in Beijing, the capital of China, students’ mass mourning for the passed party leader and appeal to political and economic reform led to demonstrations all over the country including major cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou.  Two months later, peaceful protests had been transformed into total chaos that martial law had to be implemented. On the 4th of June 1989, troops and tanks transformed the Square to a bloody battlefield and the state’s notorious massacre against the protesters (I’m not saying all of them are students as the compositions of the protesters had greatly changed over time) has since left a dirty mark on China’s path to democracy.

I have long since expressed sympathy towards the innocent civilians victimised in the massacre and my condolence also goes to those suffered from London riots. However, major criticism pointed at London Police’s poor performance is very intriguing to me comparing to the case in China two decades ago.  China has since the incident received fierce attacks on disregarding human lives and human rights, albeit the fact that its situation had fallen out of control and the security overall had been at stake towards the end of the movement.

This year, similar request echoed in Britain after a series of stringent policies landed on public spending. People are pissed, no doubt, but my first impression was that people wanted to rebel and shake up society, at least some of them. A war was at call yet people didn’t realise that they were already at war where consciousness and sanity were at loss and the darkest facet of humanity was exposed to the light. A mother had to turn her daughter in when she saw her ill behaviours on TV. “An inherent sense of right and wrong” was then dragged into the limelight.

The initial fatal killing of a 29-year-old by the police stirred up the situation into uncontrollable. Hooligans, rioters had taken advantage of public resentment and wrecked havoc on the entire city, largely due to the “soft” diplomacy deployed by London’s Metropolitan Police. One opinion poll even showed that a third of respondents suggested that rubber bullets be replaced by real ones. A friend of mine thinks that if the martial law were to apply earlier, less damage would have been caused, and maybe Jamie Oliver’s restaurant wouldn’t have been damaged.

The original picture retrieved from Hellomagazine.com

I kept thinking if there would have been a better way, and I’m sure there will be when tackling such situations, either be Tian’An Men Massacre or London Riots. We are all striking our way towards democracy yet it has seemed to fail us in different forms. I wouldn’t say the criticism on the Massacre were hypocritical even after the London Riots where the other extreme took place. The question is whether we are how we do rather than what we do.

And then I kinda forgot about her for a while until I recently dug out this video, which absolutely blew me away and the only response I could give was WOW WOW and WOW!!!! So does anyone else that has heard her sing. 

Even David Foster was like OMG, this girl is incredible when Charice absolutely aced those high pitches. I am so enchanted by her voice and even more inspired by this only 19-year-old girl who has come a long way from a small town in Philippines, barely escaped from her violent father and was raised alone by her mother. The most thing I love about her is that she possesses such fine qualities as modesty and honesty in real life but when she sings, she has the ability to make the whole world listen to her. She started singing and attending singing contests when she was only four after being taught some basic singing techniques by her mom. The girl’s absolutely got a gift and she knows how to take care of it too. Thanks to YouTube, she made it to a wider audience and was invited to Ellen DeGeneres’ Show in 2007 when she was only 15. After her first successful debut in the States, she held several other performances all over the nation until she hit Oprah’s “World’s Smartest Kids”.  (This might not be the one but is also good enough)

I guess you could compare her to Justin Bieber who also began his wonders from YouTube but as far as I remember, there was never an Asian like Charice who has achieved such high prestige in the western world. And she absolutely deserves all of it. After her impeccable performances on Oprah, who later connected her with David Foster, she officially started her career in the States, the empire of entertainment. The most inspiring part of this story is that even Charice is super gifted, she wouldn’t have made this far if she ever stopped making effort. Her high dedication to singing wins her all respect and credits, and more precisely, the opportunities and help from other people. I believe if you truly want to do something, the whole world is ready to help you. As the saying goes, “Luck favors those who work hard.” Go Charice!!! 

I think most prejudice derives from misunderstanding, or refusal to understand, which is even worse.

Today on the tram, I was as usual staring into the blank and a tattered bag caught my attention. I was trying to figure out the letters on the bag but it was so worn out that it became quite illegible. My look chased down to the woman in a hijab and made her feel slightly uneasy, as I could feel that she gripped her bag closer to herself. The information provided was enough to expose her identity as one of the refugees living in the commission house.Her response made me realise my impudence and I was ashamed of my inappropriate actions. HOWEVER, a woman on her left was totally sizing her up, giving her a head-to-toe check, without even avoiding the awkward eye contact. As the muslin woman ( I assume women wearing hijab are muslims???)  got up and ready to get off, the other woman kept staring at her floor-length hijab and couldn’t hide her disgusted look on her face. (SHOCKING!!!) SHAME ON YOU WOMAN!! Even though she looks different from you, it doesn’t mean that she does not deserve your respect. At the end of the day, only people like you who refuse to go out and know about others will lose so much more. I hope that people can just give themselves a chance to get out of their comfort zone and reach for something that might seem so odd to them. It surely takes courage to overcome the fear of the unknown but it all pays off in the end. A step towards tolerance is a step away from prejudice.

I was just thinking of this book whilst I was blogging and this is surely one of the heart-wrenching books I’ve read.

The Kite Runner Cover

The Kite Runner, one of my favourite book set in exotic Afghanistan. A sad yet powerful read on humanity. Recommend to those who haven’t had the chance to take a look and it won’t fail you.

So, season the lamb ribs with dry parsley, basil, pepper, salt, and hot pepper seeds, along with a cup of dry white wine. Put it aside for about an hour or two.

Heat up the pan, add a table spoon of olive oil and wait it gets hot. Add crushed garlic and chili pepper seeds according to personal preferences. (I added about 4 cloves of garlic) until you can smell the aroma. Fry both sides of the lamb ribs until they turn brown, meanwhile add a bit of dry white. Doesn’t have to be cooked though because we will roast them later on. Lay them on the baking tray when finished.

I tried two sauce this time. The first one was barbecue, which is quite easy. The second one was honey soy sauce. Sounds a bit weird but it turned to be fine.
(So the upper row is barbecue, and the lower row is honey soy sauce)

Heat up the oven at 220 degrees and prepare for the sauce.

Add about a table spoon honey into the hot pan, as we fried the ribs before so it should be still hot enough. Then add about 2 tea spoon soy sauce and mix it properly. Brush it on one side of the ribs, same applies to the barbecue sauce. Place the tray in the oven and set it for about 10 mins. Brush the sauce on the other side of the ribs in the mean time and roast them for another 10 mins. Season it with salt and pepper if necessary. If you season it well before, it should be fine.

As the oven’s still hot, slice the eggplant, season them with the same seasoning and place them on the tray where it held the ribs before so there’s still a bit of sauce left. Bake it for about 20 mins as eggplants are much harder to cook than I expected.

I served it with salad and yogurt. If  you had naans, it’s a total plus. Just add a bit of Asia Minor flavour to it.

It is so true. Living in such information-full-on society, how do we select what we need amongst zillion information out there within limited time.

I often feel that I’m running out of time reading so much everyday but still get nothing out of it. Anyone feels the same? I subscribed to dozens of blogs and tons of newspaper and having state-of-the-art gadgets but still feeling frustrated and lost. Now I realised that if I have something in mind that I would like to know about  yet not familiar with, I would go specifically look for that.

So how to manage your information?

Firstly, I would start managing my subscriptions, emails,Google Readers, RSS Feeds,Facebook, Twitter and etc. I would keep my most frequently read and delete those I never read. Then you would probably ask: what about those in between? I would suggest, to some people, delete those you’re quite familiar with and those you’re interested in and keep them to a minimum. The logic is,(might be weird), if you are those moving-forward, non-surrender, that reading something new or not-so-related to your field will force you to keep up and you will always look for those interesting to you. To those moving-away-pressure kinda people, delete those that are not interesting to you yet you feel obliged to read, because you know you would not read them anyway so why waste your time and effort putting yourself in an unpleasant situation

Secondly, look for those field-related readings. If those readings happened to fall into your field, congratulations. Follow those experts in your field and read their blogs or recommendations would really help. Don’t know how to find an expert? If I were a student,which I am, I would go ask my professor, which is probably the most simple solution. If  I were working, I would just pay enough attention to my colleagues’ dialogues or reports unless I want to change the job. I would try interacting with them if possible, which is one of the tips that I’ve learnt from Joy Chen, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joy-chen. (Recommend students subscribing to her blog and newsletter, really useful information sometimes.)

Thirdly, I would start blogging/tweeting/microblogging about those interest me and keep a habit of it, which is also a really good way of digesting and classifying the information. It is really the hardest job I know. Scientifically speaking, if I do it non-stop for 21 days, I will have formed a habit out of it. So just keep keep keep doing.

I’m recommending some good gadgets/apps I’ve been using here.

Google Readers: It’s efficient and convenient that you get to all sorts of information at one time. Be careful not to get lost.

Outlook RSS Feeds: The only annoyance is that you have to type each feed individually. No copy/paste. Serves similar as Google Readers. (Anyone knows if there’s mac version?)

News 360: An apple app that brings you news from all over the world, from all angles, so it says.

Mindmeister: a very good mind-mapping app that helps your sorting out thoughts and ideas.

Evernote: a similar app to Mindmeister but in more forms: voice recordings, photos, notes and videos.

Above are all that I can think of for now. Would recommend more later on if I found any good stuff.

Hope this is even a little useful and best luck!

又一年，渐渐少去的过年气氛，渐渐少去的家庭成员。嫁出去的女儿泼出去的水。逝去的再也抓不住，未来的却已见端倪。

我最喜欢的一个阿姨正巧坐我旁边，饭间问我过去最开心的事情是什么，说开心的事情就应该分享。她想了想过去一年最开心的事莫过于一桩二十多年的误会解除了。说人活着，开心就好。这话从一个活了大半辈子的女人嘴里说来，少了几份沧桑，多了一些恬静。接着又给我看了她哥哥写的字，登在了报纸上，她裁了下来和女儿的照片随身放在皮夹里。那块豆腐干大小的剪报上还有她94岁的妈妈，依旧精神矍铄。我想这是福报，也因为人活得开心，开心又长寿是最幸福的一件事。

晚上一个人洗澡的时候在想，一个人躺在床上想，一个人在黑暗中想，既然到头来都是一样，那存在的意义又在哪里？追忆似水年华，时间如沙漏，从指缝间就这么流过了。人来人往，只有那么一些人在生命中留下痕迹。听一些记不住名字的歌，看一些过眼云烟的电影，读一些记不住情节的书，到头来什么都留不下，流过的只是时间。以虚无去触碰行云流水，到头来是否大象无形。能让我在当下沉下来的东西又是什么。

重新拾起床第的经史之书，犹如在茫茫大海中抓住那柄船舵如此这般的慰藉。一盏灯，一本书，一种能与古人日出而作，日落而息的联系与触动，顿感温润心头。才感觉到此阶段心头浮躁，如今重新确定坐标后，便要继续前行。日子还得过，现实总得面对。只是要开始花大段的时间和大段的经历投入一件自己觉得感兴趣并值得的事，一头扎进去，做那只驼鸟；经年累月，再出来看世界或许就不一样了。

新年决议：读史静心

后来晚上做梦，梦见自己少年行走江湖，初出茅庐，如沐春风。醒来仍有幸福的感觉。想来不经事的时候才最开心，年少不经事，“无知”“无为”最幸福。最不开心的反而是懂了那么一点点以及只懂了那么一点点后，那时无知的张力才最为显现，最为令人执念揪心。把自己放低，放平，能够放得和大地一样宽广就好了。

第二天爸爸整理老照片，一张张皆是回忆的相片。吃饭时父母聊起彼时过年的情形，那是物质贫乏却无比开心的年代，末了，对着岁月，一声叹息。

然而我还是愿意与你，读万卷书，行万里路，哪怕是要和岁月以及一切虚妄抗争的。

The Water by Feist

Every night around now, I hear something strange crackling outside my place.

Every night around now, I cannot fall asleep until late.

Every night around now, I try not to think so wild.

Every night around now, I am trying to leave.

Not so many days to go.

It was almost 9 months since I had my first scottish breakfast made by dearest Louise, may not be authentic either but who cares. So right after I got up, as I felt so drowsy and heavy, I firstly made my self a cup of lemon honey tea which totally diluted the leftover alcohol in my body.

At the same time, I put the bacons in the snack oven until they sizzled, heated the frying pan and sauteed the mushroom with pepper. Put the ready-made food in a plate and put the cocktail sausages in the oven and grilled, while doing sunny side-up. After the sausage’s done, put the scone toast in the oven coz I don’t have real scones or potato muffins or whatever. I spread it with Nutella which seems to be appropriate for anorexic people, lol.

(Sorry I had already bitten it)

Lastly, I just heated up the chickpeas with tomato sauce and then put everything in the plate so it ended up looking like 

I suppose it tastes good and trust me, it does.

Now I’m eating whilst listening to the rain outside, feeling very relaxed.