The Same Chair

After moving out from the old office, the only setback is my office chair. I really missed the old one with ergonomic mid-back feature. The current one comes with tilt back feature and allow movement in a forward and backward direction similar to a rocking motion. Anyway, I never enjoy this feature at all since I can't afford to sit back and be lazy.

So the first thing I did to this chair was to push down the tilt lever to lock the rocking motion. As I feel more comfortably sitting without the rocking motion. Strange as it seems, every morning I come back to office, the chair starts to rock as though someone has pulled the tilt lever up to get the rocking motion back again. For the first few days, I passed it out as some of my colleagues may have sat on my chair and have adjusted the seat according to his/her own preference.

One evening I was the last to leave the office. Before leaving the office, I checked my chair again making sure that it was locked to my favorite position. Next morning, strange enough, the chair was unlocked to the rocking movement again. I was rather annoyed. "Has anyone been sitting on my chair before I came in?" I mumbled in my heart, is that my chair? Yes it was the same chair.

"I think there is another shift at night.." I told my colleagues.

"What do you mean by that?" One of them asked.

" I said there was someone sitting on my chair working the night shift"

" You must be joking!"

" I think this is pretty common in this office." Another collegue added on.

"Okay then, why not you do this..."

In the evening before leaving office, I wrote on a piece of paper,

DEAR USER,

PLEASE PUT THE SEAT BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL POSITION AFTER USE.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND COOPERATIONS

I sticked the paper on the back of the seat.

The next morning when I came back to office, the seat was intact. I am glad that the worker of the other shift got my message by pushing the lever down to stop the rocking movement before clocking out in the morning....

Quick Baked Pasta

Elgin got bored with the food catered by his school canteen and the burden now has fallen upon his mom to crack her head thinking what to pack into his breakfast box every morning. I just play-played with this recipe and the result is not too bad. Great as a quick fix for any busy working mom like me.

You will need:
1 bowl of colourful pasta
1 can of Campbell Cream of Mushroom/Mushroom potage
1 egg
1 pinch of salt & pepper
Some mix vegetables or celery or brocolli or cauliflower
Some sausages/chicken hams cut into small pieces (omit this for vegetarian diet)
Some cheddar/mazarrella cheese

Methods:
1. Boil the pasta in a pot of hot water according to instruction in the packet. Drain the pasta when it's cooked.






2. Pour the pasta into a casserole dish and mix it with cream of mushroom, cut sausages/ham, egg, pepper and salt.





3. Topped with cheese slices.Sprinkle some oregano or mixed herbs on top







4. Baked till the cheese has melted and it's now ready to be packed into the tupperware.

My Average Child

I was pretty upset with Elgin as he did poorly in his last term exam. He merely achieved position 23 in his class. I didn't expect him to score flying colours but I didn't expect him to be lagging behind either.

As a mother, I am always torn between the thought of giving my child a stress free childhood or imposing pressure for him to be successful later in his life. Like every parents, I expect my child to excel in his study hence he wouldn't have to be the "dung collector or beggar". This has been my parents most favourite fear approach to their children in those days. Nevertheless this "profession" is no longer applicable today.

I was brought up carefree without having to attend tuition classes (that really saved my dad a lot of money). I have never given my parents any undue worries over my study as basically I was an "above average child". Basically I have no problem with my study and had always made my dad proud in many occasions of award presentation in schools. These are the testimonials of me being a brighter child, as compared to Elgin, I supposed. But I reckon the greatest contributing factor was none of others but my family background. Look, my poor dad can't even afford TV during those years. My sole entertainment was a transistor radio which most of the time I cuddled it to sleep. I spent most of time reading story books and listen to the radio (that reminds me of the song"yesterday once more"). My childhood years were basically free from any forms of temptations. No computers, no TVs, no PS2 no Internet games.

However, the current era is different. As we entered into this new millennium when computer becomes more like an essential than luxury, the impact has been devastating. This is a dharma degenerating age as the impact of new ages gadgets have profoundly affected our lives and family. Our children are more addicted in communicating with their virtual friends and building their imaginative virtual world than talking to their own parents. While we believe that technologies have made people closer, it has also eroded family cohesion, social values, and children’s moral and intellectual development.

Considering the impact, I uplifted some level of freedom and have imposed a restriction for Elgin to use the PCs and play Internet games only on weekends only. Obviously the decision has created some tension between us and we have many "mom-and-babe" arguments over the freedom of usage for he claims that this is his right and entitlement. I know what I did was right as I must pull him back to the right track. I can't afford to let my son be the victim of the technologies and deteriorate in the forces of dark ages.

There are 50 kids in the class and mathematically 24 of them have to be below average. My son is 23rd, perhaps I have to thank God for my child to be marginally above average. While I learn to accept the fact that Elgin was a child with average intelligent, I can't let him be the victim of the dark forces in this dharma degenerating era.

Steamboat Dinner

All members in my family love steamboat except for my hubby. Simple, steamboat is not meant for the impatient sort. So, my solace when my hubby is away from home is often an arrangement of a steamboat family dinner in his absence!

The base soup was my mom-in-law's production. I rather called it as the ' superior stock" as she would insist to put in many ingredients such as chicken carcass, turnips, carrots and celery, slow boiled for at least 2 hours. Sometimes the dried scallops were not spared either. When dried scallops are added, I can't but to rename the soup as "imperial stock" instead. In actual fact, you really need not put in too many ingredients for the soup base since it will be sweetened by the steamboat ingredients anyway.
There are many ready ingredients available for steamboat. The must-have list is as follows:-

Vegetables : Lettuce, Chinese spinach, water cress (kangkong), coriander leaves (cilantro), white cabbage and etc. In fact any green leafy vegetables are suitable for steamboat. Mushrooms are fantastic too. You can put any types of mushrooms as they will enhance the taste of the soup further. Lastly don't forget another very important vegetable: Cameron Highland Pearly corn which is my favorite.

Seafood: Floral crabs, prawns, lala(clams), fresh scallops and not forgetting abalone if cost is not a major issue. Anyway, the cheap replacement is "abalone mushrooms". Varieties of fish balls and fish meats produce are also available in any frozen food store. My mom in law will normally make her own "yong tau fu"

Meat: I don't normally like to add meat. Basically you can have some meat balls, organic chicken slices/lean pork slices or sausages.

This is really marvelous!

Baked Lemon Cheese Cake

Craving for cheesy cheese cake? This is a simple recipe to follow:-

Digestive Biscuit Crust
150 g Mcvities Digestive biscuits
140 g melted butter

Lemon Cheese Filling:
500g soften cream cheese
90g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tsp lemon juice

Method:

1. Crushed the biscuits. Melt the butter and mix together with the biscuits crumbs. Press evenly onto a bottom of 8"/20cm spring form(loose bottom) tin. Chill in the fridge until firm.
2. Beat cream cheese and sugar at low speed. Add in egg one at a time and mix well. Lastly mix in grated lemon rind.
3. Pour cream cheese fillings onto crust and bake bain marie (water bath) at 170 degree celcius oven for 20 minutes or until centre is set.
4. Let cake cool in oven with heat off for an hour.
5. Then chill for 6 hours or overnight before serving.
   

The Legend Of Miao Shan

Today is Kuan Yin's birthday. Three days in a year devout Kuan Yin devotees celebrate the three festivals which are attributed to the life of Princess Miao Shan, the Chinese emanation of Kuan Yin. The three auspicious day in the Lunar year calendar are:

2nd Lunar Month 19th day - which marks the Day She was born
6th Lunar Month 19th day - marks the Day She entered the Nunnery

9th Lunar Month 19th day - which marks the Day She attained Enlightenment.

The legend of Kuan Yin's emanation as the sweet and virtuous Miao Shan has caught the hearts of many Chinese people that she outshines all other deities in the land, be they of Buddhist, Taoist or any other origins. To them it is common knowledge that Kuan Yin is the enlightened form of their beloved princess and therefore Kuan Yin, the Godness of Mercy, is always manifested in a female form reaching out to them.

The legend of Miao Shan goes like this:

Towards the end of the Chow Dynasty (around 3rd BC), in the Kingdom of Hsing Lin, there lived a king called Miao Chung. He had 3 daughters and they were Miao Ching, Miao Yin and Miao Shan is the youngest daughter. Before the birth of Miao Shan, Queen Po Ta had a strange dream in which she saw a heavenly pearl transforming into a fiery sun which then tumbled down and settled at her feet. When told of it, the king, in his wisdom, considered that as a celestial sign to be an excellent omen and he looked forward to having a male heir to his throne. However, to his great disappointment, a girl was born to to him. This was on the 19th day of the 2nd moon and she was named Miao Shan.

Miao Shan grew up to be a religious and virtuous girl unaffected by the attractions of worldly matters. What she yearned for was to have a quite retreat in the mountains where she could practice the perfection of her virtues. She longed to be able to bring relief to all the miserable beings on earth.

When his daughters were of marriageable age, the King found suitable husbands for them. While her sister accepted their marriages, Miao Shan steadfastly refused to marry and infuriated the father by choosing to retire to a nunnery called the White Sparrow.

Her father made several attempts to make temple-life unbearable to his fragile daughter so as to pursuade her to return to her palace.However, all his attempts failed for the little suffering was not going to deter one whose mind was set on cultivating the Buddha's path. In his anger, the King ordered that the nunnery be set on fire for such an infilial daughter deserved to be put to death. However, the fire was instandlty put out by an inundating shower which saved the lives of the princess and the few hundred nuns. The enraged King then decreed that Miao Shan be executed but the executor's sword, upon contacting the princess's neck, broke into smithereens! This so angered the King that he next order that his infilial daughter be strangled to death with a silken cord. As she was being strangled, the tutelery god appeared in the form of a great tiger, dispersed the crowd, and carried the inaniminate body into the forest.

Miao Shan's spirit descended into hell, but her sweetness and her purity of her prayers soon converted it from a place of great suffering to paradise. This alarmed the Registrar of the Living and the Dead who then hastily petitioned Yen Lo, the King of the Underworld, to order her removal declaring, "since it has been decreed that, in justice, there must be a heaven and hell, if Princess Miao Shan's soul is not sent back to the upper world, there will be no hell left, but only a heaven."

Her soul was then quickly transported back to her body which was lying under a pine tree. Upon returning to life, Buddha Amitabha appeared, and directed the princess to continue her practice of the perfection in a cave called Hsuan Ai, in the island of Pu-to.

For nine years she devoted herself to performing acts of merits and meditational practices and attained Buddhahood. It was in Pu-to Island that she acquired her two acolytes better known as Golden Youth and Jade Maiden.

In the meantime, King Miao Chung, who had displeasured the Jade Emperor, Supreme Ruler of Heaven, by his heinous crimes of burning a nunnery which nearly caused the loss of so many lives and the killing of so virtuous a maiden as Miao Shan, that the received the punishment of incurable disease, the only cure being an ointment made from the hands and eyes of a "Pu Tien Jen" or "One Who Is Never Angry". Aware of her father's plight due to her acquired spirited powers and out of compassion, Miao Shan freely despatched the healing parts of her body, which effected the recovery. In gratitude the King then sent a delegation whith his miniter to thant the kind donor only to find, to his great shock, that those precious gifts came from none other than the daughter that he killed. He was so overcome with remorce that he renounced his throne and accepted the Buddhist faith. Thus ended the legend of the "infilial" daughter who became the savour to her father, and to all mankind.