Thursday, July 29, 2004

Sara and Tira Says...

It's been about five months or so since we first started MY Two Sen and we've come a long way! However, we don't know a lot about the bloggers who visit us (yes, that's you), and you about us!


So we've decided to do a little Q&A, throw out the conventional "What is your favorite color?" questions and hey, presto! The following is what we have come up with.

 
Feel free to tell us your answers to our questions! And remember, be honest!
Sara & Tira.
 

1) I'm embarassed to admit that I listen to:
Sara says:
Avril Lavigne (but only certain songs!)
Tira says: Usher


2) If I were gay (or am gay), I wanna be with (borrowed from mtv):
Sara says: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marg Helgenberger or Nicole Kidman
Tira says: Angelina Jolie


3) My most unusual crush is on:
Sara says: William H Macy
Tira says: Snoop Dogg and as sick as it sounds, I think Bill Clinton is a hottie. hahaha.


4) My favorite drink is… and you can find the best one...
Sara says: Coca-Cola Light...at my house with loads and loads of ice!
Tira says: Long Island…haven't found best one yet!


5) Five foods I want to be stranded on an island with:
Sara says: my mum's chicken rice (my mum would be so proud), mashed potatoes, steamed fish, assam laksa flavoured maggi mee and McDonald's Double Cheeseburger!
Tira says: Assam Laksa, Sarawak Laksa, dukus, mom's roast chicken, salty licorice


6) I am dressed in…. during the
a) day
Sara says: t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops sans make-up
Tira says: jeans, t-shirt, tracks, anything super casual, sneakers/flat shoes


b) night
Sara says: pants or skirt, top, heels and make-up (trust me, this is a big deal)
Tira says: black, nothing too tight, something decent, flat shoes, hahaha. I have serious accidents with anything with heels,my sis knows this!:P


7) My most disgusting habit is:
Sara says: I'm always playing with my nose ring. I also constantly interchange my nose and ear rings, without washing them (HAHA! - but don't worry, I wash my hands ;-) )
Tira says: bursting zits


8) If I could do something without worrying about the consequences, I would:
Sara says: eat EVERYTHING fattening & unhealthy, break into a bank,kill the spouses/ girlfriends of Chris Cornell from Audioslave, Doug Robb from Hoobastank, Brandon Boyd from Incubus, Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional, Chris Martin from Coldplay, Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters and marry them (yes, ALL of them)
Tira says: kill my enemies


9) When no one is looking/ around, I:
Sara says: pull out my wedgie, sing and dance and yes, play with my nose ring (not necessarily in that order)
Tira says: undo my wedgie, steal office supplies


10) The one thing I don't understand about the opposite sex is:
Sara says: their love for porn
Tira says: why they don't open up more, you tell them something and they'll promise to be more romantic, etc..., they do that for a couple of weeks (or days) and then they forget!

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Additions & Changes

Aloha all!


Just a quick update from me... there are some small changes/ additions to our blog such as the expandable blog links and archive sections, a new footer, and our new rating system. (Please insert your oohs & aahs here hehehe :P)


The number of blogs we like to read seem to multiply by the days so we decided to make things a little tidier by making the section expandable. Go on, have a try... you know you want to!


We've also added our own rating system for the music and movies we listen to and watch. As you may have noticed, we don't really write reviews on our blog because the two of us watch A LOT of movies and listen to TONS of music, so we can't be writing reviews for everything. Okay, okay, we're lazy bums too :-D Anyway, we thought the next best thing would be to rate everything so you would have an idea as to what was good and what wasn't (at least according to us). I would also like to take this opportunity to thank R., our dear friend for drawing the durians for us. He really took the time out of his busy schedule to do this for us and for that, we are grateful! Thank you R.!


So have a look around and tell us what you think!


Til my next update (which hopefully will be soon :P),
xoxo Sara

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Wanted: The Perfect Job

When I was still a little kid, I would often hear the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Back then, I had always answered, "A doctor!" I dreamt of saving the world, finding the cure for cancer, helping everyone who needed help. Really, I never really waivered from this dream right up to my college years.


Dad dying of cancer reinforced this dream. Applying to universities, I wrote about why I wanted to pursue this career. I cited my reasons. I wanted to save the world (though not in those same exact words), and I wanted to be a caring doctor. Yep, not one of those who forgot the very reason as to why they got into the profession in the first place. I mean, have you ever been sick and the doctor wasn't exactly the most sympathetic person in the world to you? I didn't want to be that doctor, I was going to be the one who listened to your woes, and be at your beck and call.


Then after I sat for my pre-university exams, I realised maybe this wasn't really what I wanted to do. Perhaps I chose this career path because I wanted to make my parents proud, after all I did come from a family of high expectations. I had often heard of my parents oohing and ahhing over their friend's daughter's or son's grades or how many hours they studied, etc...Perhaps I wanted to have them ooh and ahh over my grades. Perhaps I wanted their friends to ooh and ahh over their doctor daughter?


I wanted to please my parents and make them be proud of me, especially coming from parents who are professionals. This threw me in a tumble!


I still wanted to help people but I didn't really know if the medical field was really my destiny or what would make me happy. And the very thought of diagnosing a patient with the wrong illness, frankly, scared me.


So I went soul searching and I decided what I really wanted to do was chemical engineering. I loved chemistry and I knew it paid well. So that's what I did and woohooo, got accepted into uni to do just that. But wait, that's not the end of the story. :)


After a semester of organic chemistry, homesickness and not really knowing if I wanted to do chem e, I dropped out. My other options were pharmacy or speech therapy, yes, all along the lines of helping people. But those didn't work out either!


So here I am about eight to 10 years later, still soul searching...I work for a nonprofit, which of course means that I don't get a lot of money. But hey, I am still on track with the "helping people" dream. :P


It's funny how one starts out wanting to do something and ends up in a totally different career. I am sure there are some who stick to their guns and see it through, but that wasn't me!


I have been forwarded jokes in the past where it says, "If you think your job is bad, think again," and it's got these people in white coats smelling armpits as a job. Then just recently, I read about how this guy became a self-made millionaire. He had dropped out of college, took on a course to be a mortician. But then he watched "Pulp Fiction" and was inspired to pursue in a career where he cleans up the guts and gore of crime scenes, suicides, etc...As you can imagine, it's not a very competitive job, so now he's made and is making his big bucks.


Anyway, I am still trying to find happiness and trying to find that perfect job. I want to be happy when I get up and have to go to work. I want to make enough money to be able to afford the things I want. I want to be able to travel and see the world. I want to be challenged and never lose interest. I want to be have fun. I want to enjoy working with the people around me. I want to help people.


I am okie in my job right now, but it may be time to move on. But before I do, I am still looking for that job, that perfect job.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

"A Little Hero Inside All of Us"

If you've already seen it, you'd know that I have too, and gone ahead and borrowed a line from "Spiderman 2." Oprah had also featured real-life superheroes on her show, which inspires the topic of today's entry. Oh, by the way, I recommend the movie! There were some things I didn't agree with but otherwise I think it's a great watch (check back with us to find out our new rating system!)

What really makes a hero? I agree with Aunt May that there's a little hero in all of us. Heroes in real-life don't have to wear masks, capes, or have the ability to fly, weave webs or have a sidekick. They could be that very ordinary person next to you.


Some go out and do great big things that everyone else knows about, but there are those quiet heroes that don't really get recognised for what they do. Then there are of course those who become heroes "accidentally" like in the movie "Hero." (the american movie, not the chinese one, which by the way was great too!)


My definition of a hero is anyone who is a positive role model for me and everyone else around the world. Anyone who "saves the world" by doing good, without so much as wanting recognition or monetary rewards. Someone who does it just because she/he wants to make the world a better place (as cliched as it sounds). Someone who can be brave and strong, not necessarily in the physical sense, but more so mentally. Someone who overcomes personal tragedies, disabilities, rises above them to teach us all that the human spirit prevails.


Some of my heroes include famous people, some who've passed on, some everyday people, some people I don't even know. Here's who I think are heroes. But keep in mind that these are just some of them.


First of all, I think Mother Teresa was a hero. A champion for the poor, disabled and just about practically everyone who was not of the privileged world. She was humble, gave up her materialistic world, donned a white sari with blue trim, yet, world leaders all considered it an honor to be in her presence. In her eyes, there was no such thing as color, everyone was equal in her eyes.


There are times when I remind myself that I should not be materialistic or bitch about the person walking past me, but it's a lot harder than it seems!


Another hero would be blood donors and organ donors. Donating blood can help save lives...as many as three! All it asks of a person is to go to a blood center every 8 weeks, and to donate blood, which takes about an hour! How hard can that be?


I think it's remarkable too that siblings or friends can donate a kidney to the other! It's giving of yourself and one has to have a great big huge selflessheart to take that step to help save your loved one's life. Without a doubt....heroes!


One day, I was at the theater and there was this guy standing there collecting our tickets. He was and is a hero. Why? He had the courage, the guts to stand there infront of the public. He could have chosen a less public job, but he didn't. This guy's face was badly deformed, yet instead of hiding behind closed doors, he chose to stand there tall and proud! How many of us fret whenever we have the tiniest zit on our faces? We rush out to buy concealer to try and mask it, so we'd look all "perfect" infront of everyone. This guy couldn't. That's what's so amazing!


Everyday we're bombarded by ads of perfect people with perfect faces and bodies. Sometimes we may meet these people and you just know looking at them or them looking at you with their upturned noses, that they think they're better than everyone else. I hate to burst your bubble but there's a lot more to a person than physical beauty. I honestly would rather be friends with the guy at the theater than snooty people like these. I saw him only for a few minutes but in those moments, he taught me about courage and that it's really what is inside all of us that counts.


Then of course there is my mother. We've probably written about her in this blog several times, but hey, if I'm writing about heroes, she definitely belongs to this category!


She's got one of the strongest spirits I have ever known. Every kid will say their mom's the best, and we're no different. She will literally lay her life down for any of her kids if she were put in that situation. Growing up, she did not always have what the kid next door possessed, and her childhood wasn't always the happiest. She made it a point never to let any of her kids go through that.


When our dad got sick, she looked after him day and night, literally. The burden was huge and heavy, but she pulled through and kept her marriage vows, in sickness and in health, she looked after our dad.

Times are better now, but I could not have turned out the way I did if it weren't for my mom. She's always wanting the best for me, for us.


Other heroes of mine include: Nelson Mandela - 1993 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Aung Suu Kyi - 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Bono, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks - a black woman who refused to give her seat up to a white man in 1955, etc... And to add to my ever-growing list of heroes and role models, (borrowing from Oprah) this little girl is a true hero too, Alex Scott.


I am sure I will add more to my list as I go through life. It's the person you think least likely to be your hero, that person who inspires, the person I could meet today, tomorrow or whenever in the future. That is what keeps me going in life!