Buddies

More viral than Twitter is female gossips. News travels fast through this channel and the more spicy it is, the faster it travels.

I personally enjoy gossips, here I said it. Don't tell me you did not know that about me.

So yeah I shared some news with my gals today in class and I got filled on the latest too. Who is dating who, who broke up with who... It's amazing how those futile conversations can be relaxing at times.

On some other note, I've been thinking today how when you've got online buddies, distance and geographical location does not matter. To my buddies who are going abroad, hint hint.

Love you all! Yeah I'm zen today. Drank way too much green tea. Oh I love that!

With a moo moo here and a moo moo there

Nope! I'm not on dope or something. Not yet, that is. I can't believe that I've almost let one week pass without posting an update here. I won't give the lame excuse that life has been hectic, 'cause that'll be an outright lie. I'll just say that I have been enjoying the last days of those unexpected holidays as much as I can.

Regarding the title, today we went visiting a place that will soon be ours and we were welcomed by cows that were silently grazing there. On the picture you can see a brown and a black one. Now ain't that great? I managed to fulfill one of my holiday-wishes, that of photographing cows. Ooh but I was damn scared of those cute but nonetheless big creatures...

Anyway, the weekend is going on smoothly dudettes and dudes, how's yours?

Family get-togethers

Oh yes, you might plan everything beforehand but it'll always turn out to be ALMOST perfect and NOT totally perfect. There's always something that would go wrong:

• Perhaps someone saying something that he/she should not have and embarrassing someone else.
• Someone letting out a fart.
• The host cracks a joke that indirectly makes fun of a guest's physical appearance.
• The host burns part of the food.
• The guest breaks something.

Oh but then, at the end of the day the good memories prevail and there's only one thought in your mind: When are we gonna meet again?

So dudettes and dudes and my inquisitive aliens, yes, I've been to a family get-together today and yes, it was not perfect but yes, I had an awesome time. Hehe!

Whipped Bakeshop

You guys know how much of a dessert aficionado I am and so I thought it won't surprise you much if I shared my favourite desserts-photostream with you people. The photostream is that of Zoe Lukas, she's running her own bakery, Whipped Bakeshop and makes some awesome dessert-masterpieces.

Each of her creations are real feasts for the eye and I could spend hours browsing through her photostream. No wait! I did spend hours browsing through her photos, and several times for that matter! I never seem to get enough of those lovely cakes. My favourite by far are Zoe's cupcakes and uniquely shaped cookies.

Do check out Whipped Bakeshop's photostream on Flickr but don't blame me for the drooling! :p See y'all dudettes and dudes and have a wonderful weekend.

Ouch! Shopping.

Damn I'm tired! The day was great but tiresome. We've been shopping. Or rather, Jevin went shopping and I accompanied him. So he bought himself a pair of shorts and sneakers. Damn that guy loves shopping! As soon as we entered the shopping complex, he was ecstatic and I was bored like crazy while he was trying out outfits and making his choice.

I know I'm totally un-girlie on this, but that's just not the way I shop. When I'm out shopping, I almost always know what I want way before entering the shop. I know which colour, which design and which price range of clothing I want and in that way, I shop efficiently and effectively and no need to say, my gals hate me for that, but that's just the way I am. I would have wanted to enjoy long shoppings too I guess.

An awesome part of the day was the cake above. It was great. And of course, cuddling with the boyfriend. Oh I love him so...

Holidays are coming... again.

Now now now... What do we have here? Yet another week of unsollicited holidays. Not that I'm unhappy about it, I'm only in a state of shock 'cause I just did not see it coming, especially after the Minister of Education had strongly voiced out his position against closing down schools earlier this week.

So the picture is thus: all schools, be it pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary are gonna be closed from the 21st of August till the 31st. Kids will stay at home and no tuitions, mind you. The Prime Minister deeply stretched on that. As per him, it'll be pointless to have schools closed if kids will still be meeting up with each other for tuitions or club activities.


Anyway dudettes and dudes, I'm off to plan my work for the coming days 'cause holidays won't certainly mean no work. Plus this semester is gonna be longer, I might expect to have my holidays near Christmas time. Hmph!

On the bright side it means sleeping late and waking up at the time I want all over again, so I'm not complaining. No no!

Growing Up

While hashtag fans on Twitter have found yet another way to keep themselves busy, it made me truly drown into an introspection. You know when you've just stepped into adulthood, you're almost always not entirely an adult. It takes times and you gotta recognize the signs. Those signs that will let you know that you've changed, for the better or the worse.

Sign #1 : Some Opinions Change

You will suddenly notice that some of the stupid things you deeply believed in would no longer look so wonderful or worthwhile. For me that was Avril Lavigne and baggy pants. Ew!

Sign #2 : Some Opinions Crop Up

You will start taking interest in current news and will start reading papers, not just the TV guide part. You will then feel the need to talk about what you have read and sometimes you will dare disapprove of someone else's opinion. Some people might start being impressed by who you have become.

Sign #3: Having short or long term projects will seem natural

You will start setting objectives, yeah not just those regarding the next beer party or holidays. You will look forward to completing your studies so that you could start working, buy a car, build a house, get married, have kids.

Sign #4: Commitment will look cool

No more wandering about. No more finding that the opposite sex is too weird. You meet the right person and you feel like committing.

So dudettes and dudes, are you a grown up?

H1N1 - Take your precautions

In my previous post I must admit that I was freaked out by the A H1N1 virus. Hearing all those deaths did make me wonder to what extent we are all at risk. However, thanks to the advices and information I got from several people, namely those who dropped some reassuring comments (thanks a lot dudettes and dudes!), I now feel quite confident.

For one, the virus is not killing randomly. That, at least is certain. But we should all take our precautions and those who are at risk (such as diabetes patients, pregnant women, those suffering from chronic lung, heart, kidney, liver and neurogical diseases, HIV-AIDS patients, people aged over 65 years and children aged below 5) should be even more cautious.

Some behaviour to adopt in these time would be to use paper towels regularly to blow our nose and to dispose of them correctly.

We should also wash our hands regularly using soap to get rid of any bacteria.

Wearing of masks can be useful when going out into public places. (Don't go about developing agoraphobias though).

Those who present symptoms of any flu should stay at home to prevent the spreading of the virus.

The Mauritian Ministry of Health is advising people to take paracetamol pills in case of flu symptoms and to get some good bed rest. Not all flu is H1N1. However, if one does not feel better after a day or two or if one is having respiratory difficulties, then it is advised to go to the hospital immediately.

Most importantly, dudettes and dudes, we should not give in to panic. Precautions might help us to avoid the A H1N1 virus. We should also keep ourselves informed of the local situation and inform people around us.

Finally, I wanted to share these with you:
H1N1 by Maliha
Ludovic Froget's information box.

Take your precautions dudettes and dudes and best of luck dealing with the pandemic.

H1N1 is scaring the hell out of me.

The death count is 2 in Mauritius and I don't wanna add "till date". The first victim was a woman in her fifties and now a 4-year old girl. I wonder how many deaths it'll take for authorities to be a little proactive.

It seems like some mild measures have been taken by companies and schools to protect from any contagion, they were perhaps thinking that we're above all viruses. But now that the virus has made 2 victims and there are 29 confirmed cases of the flu, I guess radical solutions need to be adopted soon.

The Ministry of Health has arranged for what they call "flu clinics" in hospitals across the island. Those are simply sections reserved solely for the treatment of A H1N1 patients. We might use the word "quarantine" here, which is arguably, given the present situation, a good idea.

I hope that this virus is contained soon and that adequate information is sent out to the population. From what I have seen, the Ministry is sending suited-up untrained PRs to communicate news on how effective they were at preventing the virus from getting to our little island for 3 whole months.

Even though Mauritius got the virus 3 months after Mexico, we cannot call that an achievement. And now that the virus is here, it seems quite irrelevant to bring that up when people are worried about the death count. Strangely the death count itself was not much mentioned, only stuff like "what is certain about this virus is that it is uncertain" were emphasised on and I feel that there's no worst statement to trigger more panic among the population.

Hell, weren't they supposed to reassure and inform the population? I know there's still some hope we can cling on to.

All we gotta do is take up our precautions and not be careless when it comes to the flu.

Update - 14.08.2009 - The death of a 3rd person was announced early morning today. The victim is a 30 year old man.

Naraindranath Gopee, President of the Government Secondary School Teachers Union has made an appeal towards the State to temporarily close down all schools to prevent the propagation of the A H1N1 virus.

I hope his appeal is heard. Right some some secondary schools are carrying out staff meetings to analyse the state of health of students and to decide on what is to be done.

They've cut the canes

At last some good news; cane cutting has already started at my place. This is putting everyone in a great mood at home. We would soon be able to go on hikes around there and I'll soon be able to take some pictures of the beautiful sceneries past the cane fields. Oh how I love this time of the year!

M6's Blunder

Last night at 8 I was cozily seated in front of my TV. The channel I chose was M6 and I was impatiently waiting for its popular program, Capital, to start. Capital is a weekly show presented by Guy Lagache, which is often divided into four parts and which centres around matters pertaining to businesses, economies, expenditure and savings. I must say that I'm a regular viewer of this show and that I'm often impressed by the amount of research carried out by M6's reporters to yield very precise, factual and exclusive reports.

Last night's program was titled Enquête sur les lieux stars de vos vacances and out of the 4 parts, one of them was dedicated to guidebooks. The report tried to demonstrate to what extent some guidebooks are not really reliable because some authors do not even try out all of the places that they recommend in those books and that some editors do not cross-check the information provided by authors before allowing the publication of those books. In summary, as per Capital's report, some information provided by guidebooks might not be accurate and in worst cases, totally fallacious. So M6 was recommending people to be cautious with guidebooks and was criticising some editors for their lack of accuracy.

So you can imagine how baffled I was by the irony of the situation when later, in the same report, there occurred what I would call a major information blunder on the part of M6's reporters.

After talking about guidebooks, the report moved on to "virtual guidebooks" such as TripAdvisor, Vinivi or DisMoiOù and here the major blunder occurred. They interviewed the guy behind DisMoiOù and followed him as he was negotiating business proposals with potential clients and all the while they referred to the guy as Gilles Granger, thrice, when he was obviously not Granger. I'm guessing that a mistake occurred while processing the show and adding the voice-off and someone confused the name of the founder of DisMoiOù with that of Vinivi.

You've got to find this blunder ironic when minutes ago, in the same report, questions were raised regarding the reliability and accuracy of guidebooks. How about the accuracy of the channel's own information? This surely has kept me wondering...

Slightly related post:
Vinivi's Milk Round

Weekend's Gone

I had a wonderful time yesterday at the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden. The last time I went there was so ages ago that I could barely recall having been there at all. So I re-discovered the garden with the family and it was an awesome experience.

On Saturday I got my fill of blissful and delightful chocolates! Got enough to last me a whole year I guess!

On another note today's Monday and classes resume. I won't be updating much dudettes and dudes. Not that I'm assuming that you'll miss me! Hehe! See y'all! And be good!

Window Cleaning

Window cleaning is very different from window shopping. I learnt it the hard way today. While one is pleasant and gives you hopes and dreams about things that could be yours one day, the other is strenuous and requires much arm power. I'll however still bless the 3 in 1 product that has considerably reduced my scrubbing time.

I took a break after the window-cleaning and will start furniture-polishing in a mo.

Now you must be wondering what the heck with all the cleaning. The thing is, my Swiss aunt, the one who usually brings a whole lotta chocolate, will be visiting us tomorrow. It's gonna be her birthday, so we thought we'd organise a little something for her. She deserves it, for all the chocolates and goodies she'll be bringing! Hehe!

Anyway, dudettes and dudes, I guess my break is over. Gotta take care of the furniture now! Have yourselves a merry little Friday. See y'all!

Being a lefty.

Left handers' day is on the 13th of August. So I thought I'd share a little about being a lefty.

Being a lefty is being like any other person except that you get to use your left hand to do stuff that others would do with their right hand. At least, that's how I see it.

Yesterday, while looking for some lefty websites, I came across one which carried loads of lefty-related products adverts and which was obviously run by lefties with some biases. Those lefties were of the opinion that we are discriminated against in many aspects. For instance, the fact that most instruments are made for right-handed persons is reason enough for them to call it a discrimination.

I hate to differ, but this is not a discrimination, simply because most lefties can handle standard instruments pretty well. I can handle daily stuff such as pens, knives, a mouse or scissors correctly. I don't need to buy special lefty material for me to start leading a normal life. Those manufacturers of lefty stuff should stop making us feel crippled without those specially-made-for-lefties-products.

The only occasions when I've been bothered because I am a lefty was when my primary school teachers wanted me to use my right hand to write and when people at religious ceremonies asked me to eat with the right hand instead of the left. Had I known better, I would have shown them my left middle finger. Too bad I was a kid.

I don't understand why some people often associate unproven negative characteristics with lefties. Parents should let their kids make their choice and teachers should comply to that choice too. There's nothing wrong about being a lefty. Well, I may be weird sometimes, but it's due to other factors, I promise.

So dudettes and dudes, is anyone of you a lefty too? I'd like to know how you find the lefty experience.

P.S: I know that La Pingouine is a lefty too. Hehe

Where does all the money go?

Yesterday, at breakfast, we received the visit of a guy dressed in traditional clothes. The purpose of his visit was to collect donation money for the construction of a new temple in the village. I'm often skeptical about those visits as I'm not even sure that the temple for which the guy was asking a donation will really be constructed. During the past 8 years that we have been living here, we've all too often had similar visits and there still is only one temple in the village.

That makes me wonder whether all the past temple-construction projects had truly been dropped or whether those projects were just plain scams aimed at collecting a maximum of money from gullible religious blinds? After all, those who are asking for donations would not be accountable to anyone. Last time I checked, there were no records of any donation that each individual made.

When it comes to the donations that people make while praying, most of this money goes in the renovation of the temple itself or in the funding of religious events and probably as the "salary" of the priest presiding over the temple.

I know that religious functions can be important but wouldn't the temple be doing more constructive actions by using the donation money for charity organisations for example? Very few do it and it's actually disappointing to see that my religion is helping no one but itself...

Next time that I'll have the choice between helping out an organisation or a temple, the choice will be easy.

Some kind of Saturday...

I just had a foot bath while watching Un Diner Presque Parfait. That was bliss! The foot bath, not the show. There's something truly fantastic about soaking your feet in warm water and scrubbing them afterwards...

Earlier today, together with Jevin, we headed for some remote areas in Goodlands. There were some places that I wanted to explore and I was hoping to photograph some cows that usually feast on the green grasses out there. Bad luck! There were no cows, except me (as Jevin astutely pointed out). I, however got some nice surprises by visiting the region. (Pictures below)

Who would have thought that barely metres away from Goodlands' main road lied such beautiful places?

Right now I just had a coffee and vanilla ice-cream with the family. The rest of my Saturday will be spent cozily in front of the TV. Tomorrow I'll be celebrating Jevin's birthday with him.

So much for my Saturday dudettes and dudes. How did yours go?