Long-distance relationships

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is one of those obnoxious, inspirational quotes told to couples in their first long distance relationship.

The distance between you and your partner compels individuality. For many couples, being around each other daily leads to synchrony of personality and behavior. Although this may seem cute at first, it has its downsides. There is little room for growth, and each individual is defined by their partner. In a long distance relationship, you have time to think about your own values, your own goals, and your individual persona.

Society today is obsessed with sex. Talk shows and magazines today tell us that sex is the primary part of a relationship, and although it is important, it should not be the dominant force driving a relationship. There are numerous long-distance relationships that break off due to the lack of physical contact. The great thing about a long-distance relationship is that it can help strengthen the bond that goes beyond the physical between you and your partner, because you have more time to talk to each other about yourselves and about each other. A long-distance relationship fosters communication and trust-building.

When you are around someone constantly, it can be easy to take them for granted. It is easy for couples to get so wrapped up in their daily lives and schedules that they forget to value each other; they get into arguments and become caught up in problems that can lead to a break up. It is a sad truth, but sometimes being away from the person you love can be good for you. Distance teaches you and your partner the value of your relationship, as well as greater appreciation for the time you two get to spend together. You begin missing their laugh, their jokes, and their company.

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A long-distance relationship requires commitment from both you and your partner to work. It requires communication and trust. There will be rough patches, of course, but if each individual clearly knows the reason why they are in the relationship and recognizes their common goal to share life together, then the benefits of the outcome will outweigh the negatives.

“Distance between two hearts is not an obstacle, rather a great reminder of just how strong true love can be.”

Friends like Family

When I first met them, we were rivals and strangers who knew nothing about each other. Time passed, and we just felt that friendship had urged within us and without any word spoken there are times that gestures were just enough to create a friendship that could withstand any challenges that came out way. The value of friendship to me was priceless; something that no one can obtain in a flick of time.

So, what makes a family a family? Can family only be a real family when all siblings in the family have the same dad and mom? Can family only be a real family when everyone lives under the same roof in the family? I believe that family isn’t just by blood, it is defined by something more.

Sometimes we come to see friends as family because members of the family we grew up with live far away or feel too different, or are just too difficult to deal with. Ending contact or cutting off a family member who brings you grief is a modern liberation, like the freedom to choose a spouse or divorce one. Holes left by rejected or rejecting relatives, or left by relatives lost to distance, death or circumstance, can be filled by friends who are like family. 

They are the ones you can run up to in times of any crisis as well as during the happy moments of your life. The world might go through a tremendous change but friends are the people we can rely on no matter what. Often known as siblings from different parent, friends keep us grounded as well as also help us retain the child in us no matter how old we get or how busy we are in leading our professional as well as personal lives.

I personally ignore the fact about whose DNA has recombined with whose when everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching when you are going through hell, they are your family. Like the saying goes, ‘ Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.

Dream Vacation

Siting over 2,000 miles west of California, about 1,500 years ago a group of canoes came ashore to some of the islands now known as Hawaii. These people, the islands’ first known residents, had rowed about 2,000 miles from the Marquesas Islands to get hereThese cultures brought traditions of their own and over time created new traditions such as surfing, hula dancing, and exchanging flower garlands called leis which is something I have always admired about this dream place.

Hawaii is the world’s largest island chain, and it is the only U.S. state completely made up of islands. But only 7 of its 132 islands are inhabited. The Hawaiian Islands are volcanic islands. They have formed as the Earth’s crust, made up of giant rocky slabs called tectonic plates, moves over a particularly hot spot in the molten layer beneath the crust. The heat melts the rock that makes up the crust, turning it into magma. Then once the magma breaks through to the surface of the Earth’s crust it cools and forms new land.

Hawaii is known for its beautiful beaches, some of them with unusual colors. Many beaches are filled with white sand, but other Hawaiian shores are covered with green, red, pink, and even black sand. Since I like hiking, biking, kayaking, sailing, swimming, or just sitting on the beach, Hawaii is the state for me. Near the water, you can relax as palm trees blow in the island breeze. Travel toward to the center of one of the big islands and I can hike through dense tropical rain forests and experience stunning waterfalls and also to not forget diving in the waters and snorkel near Hawaii’s coral reefs.

Though Hawaii has thousands of plants and animals, it has only one native land mammal: the Hawaiian hoary bat. Hawaii’s other mammals, including the mongoose, rat, and feral pig, were brought to the islands by humans. Hawaii is teeming with native birds like the Hawaiian owl, the noio, a type of tern and Hawaii’s state bird, the nene. Hawaii’s waters are home to sea life such as monk seals, hawksbill turtles, and lizardfish. Humpback whales visit the waters from December to May to mate, give birth, and nurture their calves.

The main thing of Hawaii that I love is their culture is every bit as diverse as its geography, with virtually every nation and ethnicity represented in its food, festivals, music and art. From hula and hip hop to the Honolulu Symphony and community theater, the possibilities for today’s visitors to participate in Hawaii’s rich culture are limited only by the imagination.

Benefits of home-cooked meals

Spices, herbs and the aroma that circulates the house when there is something cooking in the kitchen is a odour that can take up all our hearts and waters our mouth. Like how the elders had always rang it in our ears, there is honesly nothing better than home-cooked meals. Personally, I always enjoyed eating at home rather than indulging on unhealthy food outdoors, which also at times burns an hole in my pocket. But the taste of home food has its own speciality which outdoor food can never take over.

 

Honestly, there are very much difference between home cooked meals and meals we have outdoors. Mainly is that home cooked meals are cooked with love, care and a lot other spices. However, meals out of home are cooked for the prices we pay which sometimes lack in tasting too. Everyone appreciates the comfort of home cooked meals, but cooking at home also means healthier eating. When you explore meals to cook at home and take the time to prepare food for yourself and your family, you enjoy healthful and nutritious food. You also contribute to the health of your family, the planet, your community, and your finances.

Restaurants, especially fast food restaurants, often try to offer the appearance of value by offering large portions. At home, however, it may be easier to control the amount of food you consume. There is no pressure to eat everything on your plate because you have paid for it. When you order at a restaurant, you receive the quality the chef prepares. When you cook at home, however, you enjoy the quality you feel you and your family deserve.

Nobody has to tell you that eating out is expensive. The difference between a sandwich at a local restaurant and a sandwich from your kitchen is about more than ambiance. Buying prepared food at a restaurant typically costs much more than buying ingredients to put together yourself. Cooking at home allows you to get more for your money by cutting out the excess costs of restaurant preparation and service. In other words, the more often you make your own food, the more money you'll save.

Eating at home gives my entire family a time to be together. There is a study that shows that when we eat together, our kids and family are much healthier. Home-cooking generally is very synonymous with family gathering. The beauty of home-cooking is that ability to share love through your cooking. The appreciation, the compliments, the smiles, the requests for more is all home-cooking is all about which is something I and my family had been practising generation by generation.

A visit to Marina Bay Sands

Marina Bay Sands is known to be a premier entertainment destination with its vibrant diversity of attractions and facilities. The vision was to build an integrated development that is timeless, a landmark that possesses a distinct identity which distinguishes Singapore from other cities.

Recently, I had the chance to have a one night stay over at the Marina Bay Sands. Since we did an early booking, we had the chance to get a 360 view from the balcony. It was one of the most majestic feeling to be felt to be able to explore the wonders in Marine Bay Sands. The balcony viewed the gardens by the bay, the artscience museum and the Singapore flyer. To be amazed of the view during daytime was stunning, but the night view was something to be seen at least once in a lifetime.

Imagine soaking in the world’s largest rooftop infinity pool and gazing down on the glittering expanse of the city from 57 levels above. Marina bay is also famous for the world’s one and only longest elevated pool. At 150 cm long, the Infinity Pool was pure indulgence, and offers winning views of the city from 57 storeys up.

After your swim, sunbathe on a luxurious poolside lounger, or relax in the shade of a palm tree with a glass of champagne in hand.

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The one night was not fulfilling to explore the whole of Marina Bay Sands since it would take up days to completely enjoy the divisions and places around the place. Our last day arrived, where we had to pack up which sadly ended our holiday. Before making a move, we indulged into the buffet breakfast which was one of a kind, consisting of many types of local and international food.

Marina Bay Sands seamlessly combines business and leisure into a singular destination unlike any other.It was the greatest experience to be able to have a night stay at the most international location.

Music

We all know what music is, but in one line ,we can say "It is the voice of soul". It expresses the feelings which cannot be put into words and cannot be remained in silence. Everyone has their favorite song and there is always an untold story behind it.

Music can take different forms. Be it, music as an interest for singing, playing the instruments, music as a part of Dance. It is also considered as an essential part of every culture, in every country. Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace.

It does not matter if the sound of the note comes from above or below your ear, you call it a “low” note because the frequency is long and slow, and we relate slow things with weight, and weight implies gravity, so “low notes” are perceived as heavy. High notes are perceived as light,  less affected by gravity. So music has an inherent sense of direction based on pitch.

If ascending musical lines suggest upward physical motion, and descending lines really do descend in the mind as if you yourself are moving lower and lower, then the music is transporting you, taking you on a journey simply by vibrating your eardrums and infiltrating your psyche without using words. It does this because it is a language which follows essential natural patterns which are deeper than words.

Music is the vehicle of the universe. Whatever has a life of its own, has music. Be it the sound of waves or the chirping birds or the roar of a tiger. And we humans can only hear a limited subset of the complete sound spectrum. For me as a guitarist, creation of a musical piece is nothing short of divine experience, something that I am merely a channel for.

Recipe : London Almond Cookies

Servings 100 pieces

Ingredients

• 100-120 pieces whole almonds
• 220g plain flour
• 1/4tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 20g milk powder
• 20g cornflour
• 180g butterat room temperature
• 110g brown sugar
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 600g dark chocolate
• 100-120 paper cups
• 100g white chocolate

 Instructions

 

To prepare almonds:

1.      Toast the whole almonds in a pre-heated oven at 170°C for 10 minutes.

To make cookies:

1.      Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, milk powder, and cornflour.

2.      Using an electric beater fitted with a paddle, cream butter, brown sugar and salt. Fold in sifted dry ingredients and vanilla essence. Mix to bind.

3.      Using the teaspoon measuring spoon, scoop 1 teaspoon cookie mixture and cover ech almond, shaping into an oblong shape. Place onto pre-greased trays.

To bake:

1.      Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Bake cookies for 15 minutes or until lightly browned, turning tray midway. Leave to cool.

To decorate:

1.      Melt dark chocolate in a bain-marie. Do the same for white chocolate and place in a piping bag and snip.

2.      Dip cooled cookie into melted dark chocolate and place in paper cup. Pipe fine zig-zag lines of white chocolate on top of cookie and set aside till both chocolates set before storing in jars.

Smoking Kills

Smoking Kills

                ‘Everytime you light up a cigarette you are proving that your life is not worth living.’

When your parents were young, people could buy cigarettes and smoke pretty much anywhere, even in hospitals. Advertisements for cigarettes were all over the place. Today the public is more aware about how bad smoking is for our health. Smoking is restricted or banned in almost all public places and cigarette companies are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio, and in many magazines. Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease, that it can shorten your life by 10 years or more and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands a year. So why are people still lighting it up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.

Cigarette manufacturers spend millions of dollars every year to convince you and your children that smoking will make you exciting, athletic, important, sophisticated, and sexually attractive. Quitting smoking is the best preventive medicine. Experts estimate that stopping smoking is about 10 times more cost-effective at saving lives than even the best medical screening tests.

The benefits are enormous. Your heart, lungs, and blood vessels have an amazing capacity to heal themselves when given the chance. When you stop smoking, your body starts repairing itself almost immediately. The risk of heart attack, stroke, and cancer starts dropping immediately.
            

 Here are a few of the chemicals in tobacco smoke and other places they are found:

·     Acetone—found in nail polish remover. Fragrant volatile liquid ketone, used as a solvent.

·     Acetic acid—an ingredient in hair dye

·     Ammonia—a common household cleaner. A toxic, colourless gas with a sharp odour. Ammonia compounds are commonly used in cleaning products and fertilisers. Arsenic—used in rat poison. Containing pesticides used in tobacco farming occur in small quantities in cigarette smoke.

·     Benzene—found in rubber cement and gasoline

·     Butane—used in lighter fluid

·     Cadmium—active component in battery acid

·     Carbon monoxide—released in car exhaust fumes. An odourless, colourless gas that is released from burning tobacco. When it is inhaled it enters the blood stream and interferes with the working of the heart and the blood vessels. Up to 15% of a smoker’s blood can be carrying carbon monoxide instead of oxygen.

·     Formaldehyde—embalming fluid

·     Hexamine—found in barbecue lighter fluid

·     Lead—used in batteries

·     Naphthalene—an ingredient in mothballs

·     Methanol—a main component in rocket fuel

·     Nicotine—used as an insecticide. Colourless, poisonous alkaloid derived from the tobacco plant. It is a powerful drug, which affects the brain and quickly becomes addictive.

·     Polonium – 210 - Radioactive element – used in nuclear weapons as well as an atomic heat source.

·     Tar—material for paving roads. It’s a sticky brown substance that forms when tobacco cools and condenses. It collects in the lungs and can cause cancer.

·     Toluene—. A highly toxic chemical. Industrial uses include rubbers, oils, resins, adhesives, inks, detergents, dyes and explosives.

Taiping Lake Gardens

One cannot claim to have visited Taiping without taking some time off to soak in the natural beauty of the Taiping Lake Gardens. Built on top of an abandoned tin mine, the gardens were opened in 1880, earning them a place in the history books as the first public garden in then-

Spread over 64 hectares, the lake has ten scenic lakes and ponds, a Lotus Pool, charming bridges, tracks for jogging and reflexology, all surrounded by tropical plants, flowers, trees and wildlife. For kids, a roller-skating rink, paddleboat rides, and a playground ensure that the outdoors appeal more than the latest video game. 

Taiping Lake Gardens is the biggest urban parkland in Malaysia. At 222 acres, the gardens is about as big as Taiping Old Town, such was the size of recreational comfort enjoyed by the folks of Taiping today. Within it is housed massive ponds, lakes, and reputably, the best zoological gardens in Malaysia. However, it was not always joggers' treks and tranquil ponds.

Taiping Lake Gardens is one of the earliest public gardens in the Federated Malay States.

The scenic Taiping Lake Gardens has been gazetted as a national heritage together with the Telegraphy Museum Taiping building. There are now four more sites in Taiping waiting to be gazetted as heritage buildings by the Heritage Department. They are the railway station, sanitary board building which now houses the council's gallery, Larut Matang swamp forest and SM Convent. Also,any construction within 200m radius of the site must obtain reviews from Heritage Department before it could proceed.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds(PUBG)

According to the Urban Dictionary, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is an online multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole. PUBG is a non-Valve game on Steam to have the most number of players. It is not at all a normal phenomenon to overtake Counter Strike and Dota 2 which are top rated games on Steam by an Indie Studio. But PUBG had made it possible.

The game starts off with 100 players playing along. Battle royale basically means all against all, where you start with nothing and have to scavenge and collect weapons and equipment. The game is ultimately a battle to the last player standing, with 100 players on an 8 x 8 km island. There are three modes of play: solo, duo and squad, with the latter letting you team up with three other players for a team of four. Each is a little different with various pros and cons, the big pro of team play being that have people to support you, revive you and bring an element of co-operative tactics to the game.

The gameplay is surprisingly good and smooth, although there's an advantage for those with bigger displays and more powerful phones. There are three graphics settings you can use and the game will automatically select one. It's advisable to close down everything else, turn up the brightness and volume for the best experience.

The game itself is free to download and free to play. There is a rewards system within the game that will let you earn coins for your participation and completing various challenges - like login every day, travel a particular distance or survive a particular length of time.

It is also frequent where the game freezes or becomes unresponsive. Often it's just a pause that lasts about 3 seconds. There is a ping monitor on the display and sometimes you will see a pause in the game followed by the ping rising sharply, which could be down to the home Wi-Fi network demands. Typically the game runs smoothly with a reported 32ms average ping on our network. Excessive battery drain is to be expected. Not only is this a demanding game graphically, but it needs the display on all the time and that persistent connection. If you cannot play plugged in, then consider getting yourself an external battery pack.  

Then there are the times that your teammates just run over you in a car and instead of getting out to revive you, they just run over you again and again until you are dead. Sadly, we do not think anything can ever be done about people like that. In conclusion, PUBG is a very interesting and fun game however preacautions are to be taken to prevent addiction of the game.