hibernating

I think it's the weather coz I feel like sleeping everyday >.<

gear up for winter!

essentials needed to keep warm during winter:

1. scarf - check

2. thick coat - check

3. beanie/ear muff - check

4. sheepskin boots - I wana get one! waterproof shoes aren't enough. My toes still become numb

5. gloves - check.

Blessed Christmas!

Dear all, the Ting sisters would like to wish you a happy and blessed Christmas. May you be reminded of the true purpose of Christmas and may God fill you with joy continually. God bless.

PS: it's been snowing for the past few days! Hopefully we will get a white Christmas this year!!!

fattening up

I thank God for the dinners which I have attended over the past few weeks. There will be more dinners this week as Christmas is round the corner. I have Christmas eve, Christmas day and boxing day evening booked for potluck! A blessing to have people to celebrate Christmas with but at the same time I have to watch my weight.

My sisters, CF and I had a go at fine dining. It was the first ever fine dining experience for me and the food were brilliant! great team effort in making this fine dining a success!

the menu

the food!

ate until we burst. We bought two legs of lamb which were on half price sale. We couldn't finish the lamb that night and took it home. It lasted for another 3 meals! Leg of lamb is seriously good; it has not much fat and the meat is so tender! Am thinking of buying one leg and saving it for daddy when he comes up in June hahaha. Daddy will give the verdict on whether it's good or not. 1000000 times better than the ribs of lamb we eat in Miri.

Early Christmas presents. See the happy faces

***

I baked chocolate cupcakes and brownies last week! They tasted surprisingly good but I wouldn't dare to think of the calories content. I know the chocolate brownies has got 325gm of sugar and 150gm of dark choc inside *shudders*. I know it's fattening but I love anyhting that has chocolate inside! the more chocolate-y the better!!

Oh I had a go at making mian pok but i think it didn't turn out like the one in town. I supposed it's because I din use lard (real oil from the fat of the pig) but then again it will be very unhealthy if I use it. Hmmm...

I will end with two pic of 'diners club' photos. If you notice, both pics were not taken in our house! hehehe. Esther made a point when she said it feels weird when we go to people house to eat instead of us staying put in our house and waiting for people to come. It's good coz we dun hv to worry too much about disturbing our housemates and eating at different friends' house makes dinners more interesting and exciting! However, to attend dinners at others' house will need an extra effort from myself to battle the cold weather outside.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

things to remember as a Christian:

對基督徒非常有幫助的30條建議

1.下次如果觉得自己了不起时，试试行在水上。
2.当魔鬼提起你的过去时，请提醒牠的未来。
3.你不是幸运，是蒙福。
4.若想要真正活着，得先彻底死去。
5.机会也许只敲一次门，但试探却总是在按门铃。
6.我们常在强壮时，忘了神。
7.那些只在星期天呼唤"天父"的人，在一星期馀下的日子活得像孤儿。
8.不要以自我为中心，要以基督为中心。
9.没有基督，没有平安；认识基督，得到平安。（No Christ, no peace；know Christ, know peace）
10.为什麽我们不常向朋友提起神？因为我们不常向神提起我们的朋友。
11.当把你的一切献给基督，因为祂把祂的一切都给了你。
12.你现在所追求的，值得基督为它死吗？
13.使你向神靠近的人，是你真正的朋友。
14.神爱我们，不是因为我们是怎样一个人，而是因为祂是怎样一位神。
15.神的应许像夜空裡的星星。夜越深，星星的光芒越亮。
16.没有基督的生命，是无望的尽头。有基督的生命，是无尽的盼望。
17.我虽不知道未来掌管着什麽，但我知道谁掌管着未来。
18.把你的重担交给主，让它留在主那裡。
19.不要畏惧明天，因为上帝已在那裡。
20.当你除了神，一无所有时，你将知道神就是你全部的需要。
21.放手交给上帝，别再向神讲述你的风暴有多大，当向风暴讲述你的神有多大。
22.能够满足人心的，是造人心的那一位。
23.请常常保持着你心裡的光，因为你不知道，谁会藉着这光走出黑暗。
24.当我们只顾工作的时候，我们独自工作；当我们祈祷的时候，神工作。
25.神无所不在，所以我们可以随处祷告。
26.一个没有需要的人永远见不到神蹟。
27.敬拜提醒我们生命的价值，但世界却使我们忘记它。
28.步履艰难的时候，别一味的祷告，却不迈向神要你走的路。
29.祷告会为我们作很多事，忧虑同样可以。
30.神祝福你，是要你成為別人的祝福。

birthday photos!

Aloha!

finally the long-awaited photos which I hv promised!

The Surprise:

The super yummy cake made by Steph:

Group photo - the people who came

Categorising people:

(from left clockwise) SW's cell, batchmates, Lyn's cell and housemates

Food:

Presents:

My birthday post!

I celebrated my birthday last week in the midst of lovely friends and (2/3 of my) family.

It was a great birthday actually. I never really expected so many people to come as I thought it would be just the house and maybe my course mates.

Steph 'conned' me to attend one of the classes she signed up to. I thought the topic 'the role of a junior doc' sounded interesting and I knew that she wanted to have me out from the house/cook for my bday so I agreed to go.

When I got home, I was escorted into Lynda's room.

I was so touched to see so many faces in the dark room glowing in the light from the candles of the bday cake and everyone singing the bday song.

How blessed and loved! Though I din receive many presents, but the companionship I had during my bday was more than everything and definitely priceless. Thanks everyone for making the effort to come even though it was a weekday and some were even rushing with assignment.

PS: pics will be uploaded soon after I get them from my housemate :)

Weekend is here!

yay! weekend has finally come!

Happy halloween!

childhood books

...

...

In Malaysia, this whole set would cost tons but I got it very cheap here!

I've finally laid my hands on this whole set of Roald Dahl's books!! I've decided to treat myself becoz my birthday was coming and to reward myself for working so hard over the past few years. Ever since I read 'Matilda', I have always wanted to read his other books. The collaboration between RD and Quentin Blake who did the illustration in the books made reading the books so enjoyable and fun. Even my brother Jon who hates reading books read every single RD books we had on the shelf at home.

Although I have grown out from these books, I still enjoy collecting childhood books just like how some people enjoy collecting stamps, board games or DVD. Somehow it rekindles the memory of how I loved reading them when the internet and computers were non-existent during those days.

During my high school days, my English teacher would always tell us, 'read more books, read more books!!' until I could hear her screaming in my head every night before I sleep. But it just simply echoes the importance of reading to improve our English and I find it really sad when parents willingly paid at least RM60 for their children's English tuition. The money can easily be used to buy story books/magazines which would help children develop good reading habit and improve their English.

I've got the joy

I remember singing this song when I was in Sunday School and it was the joy we tend to forget as we grow older and get busy and frustrated with so many agendas in our lives. Sometimes when we feel troubled or frustrated with things in life, let us ask God to give us that joy in our heart so that we may have the peace that transcends all understanding and guard our heart and minds in Christ Jesus.

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.
Where? Down in my heart!
Where? Down in my heart!
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,
down in my heart
down in my heart to stay.

And I'm so happy. So very happy !
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart.
And I'm so happy so very happy
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart!

I’ve got the peace that passes understanding,
Down in my heart,
Where? Down in my heart!
Where? Down in my heart!
I’ve got the peace that passes understanding,
down in my heart
down in my heart to stay

And I'm so happy. So very happy !
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart.
And I'm so happy so very happy
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart!

essay time

2500 words to finish by Friday.

Does 500 words per day sound good?

加油! 加油!

yay!

Last week I received an email from the university:

"Dear Janice

Congratulation you are to be awarded a joint prize at the SSC Prizegiving event on 22nd October at 5pm. Please can I ask you to keep this confidential for now. Can I also ask that you arrive promptly and make yourself known to Dr xx, the Year 3 SSC Coordinator.

Kind regards and well done,

Josie"

It was my SSC 3.3 group project which won the prize. I was looking back at my old blog entries and I realised I never mention anything about it which I thought I would have. It was an audit on abbreviations used within the Leeds Hospital Trusts and there were 6 students in one group. Throughout the 5 weeks when we were doing the SSC, we spent half of our time in the musty, dingy, dusty old medical records department in St James; and LGI, looking through medical notes and fishing out abbreviations used by doctors. The other half of the time was spent sitting in front of the computer, synchronizing and analysing the data. It was hard work.

But our hard work has been paid off :). Thank God for that especially the opportunity He has given me to work with such a marvelous team and also for blessing us with the consultant who gave us guidance and help as much as he can.

God understands

For the past few days, my facebook newsfeed wall has been spammed with lots of videos. Most of them were good and hilarious but this particular video topped my list:

facebook link if your network banned youtube lol

God can use anyone to do His mighty works.

so stressed!

Sigh. In 4th year we have to get feedback from doctors for history taking and examination. It's very easy if we could get any doctors to sign, for example fy1/2, staff grade docs as I could clerk any patients in the A&E and present it to these doctors.

But they limit it to registrars and consultants!! argh!! it's nearing the end of this week (next week is my last but I won't be around in the hospital :( )and I still hvnt got any signed off yet!

I havent felt so stressed for a long time already but by hook or by crook, I really have to get these things done. sigh

:(

All 5 siblings. No match.

Our single hope in medicine for complete cure in Jon's leukaemia has been dashed off.

Even when there's no chance in medicine and doctors, one hope is still left and that hope is within God. Let us put our trust and hope in God that He will perform His wonders and miracles in Jonathan. Pray that during this time God will always be with our family for He is our source of comfort and peace, our tower of refuge and strength. Please pray for our family.

3-layered tea!

When I was in Miri, I had the opportunity to try the Teh C Special or 三色奶茶 which I grew to like but couldn't drink very often because I found it very sweet. Think about the calories! tsk tsk tsk

Anyway, when I went back to UK, I brought back a small container of gula Apong because I didn't manage to make the Teh C Special when I was back in Miri. The tea tasted more of evaporated milk because I think the tea I used wasn't strong and concentrated enough.

method:

1. add in the amount of gula apong according to your liking

2. add in ice

3. Then using a spoon (you know the Chinese spoon you use to eat porridge with?), slowly tilt the evaporated milk to the side of the cup. (I usually use 4 chinese-spoons of evaporated milk lol)

4. Repeat the same for the tea.

and you've got the 3 layered-tea!

PS: someone told me that some people pour the 3 layered tea contents in reverse order, ie, the tea first, milk and then sugar. I have not seen it before but if you do, please tell me yea :P

Be my everything

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
Be my everything

I pray and hope that God will be part of our lives each day. Let us not take God for granted but make Him be everything

aloha!

I got back from my district hospital placement on Friday.

The condition in the flat was so bad I understood why people rather travel to and fro from Leeds instead of opting to stay there. There wasn't any heating at all, the door to my flat is unable to lock, kitchen window lock is broken and no hot water kettle.

Maybe I have been pampered too much in my previous accommodation so my expectations were high on this one. Nevertheless there are some good points to my one-week stay in it - as it was old, no deposit was required for the room, the shower room was big, there were hand towels provided in the kitchen & toilet, many power sockets (but I don't need many) and washing liquid was provided in the kitchen.

To give you an idea of how ancient the building is, this is a picture of the switch:

definitely built before I was born

The light directly on top of my bed shining so bright I felt like a neonate receiving phototherapy for jaundice.

Fortunately I was only there for a week

Off

Magnificent view from the hilltop ain't it?Something you can't get in Msia

I'm off to the District Hospitals for a one week placement. The last hospital I went to had sheep 'baa-ing' right outside my window when I woke up. Very serene, peaceful and quiet environment.

Am looking forward to this placement as I will not be able to go online as often as I do as internet is not available in my dorm. I see this as a form of control to my internet addiction as I can't live without it.

Tata!

time

Yesterday I just celebrated a friend's birthday who just turned 19 years old. Gee, thanks to Lynda for reminding me that I was the 2nd oldest in the group >.<

How I wish time could just stop where it was and be forever 19.

Peak District 2008. Did you see that jet plane trail?

Alice in Alice in Wonderland put it aptly, "But then, shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way --never to be an old woman -- but then -- always to have lessons to learn!"

that would be great don't you think so?

blogs

It's really amazing how certain blogs attract people. Some people can do it with pictures but few words whereas some people only write but have no pictures in the entries. Yet yet yet...these blogs still draw the attention of hundreds, if not thousands of people continuously.

I guess it is the uniqueness these blogs possess which make them stand out from other blogs.

A few examples of blogs:

1. pictures only no words (but the author has stopped drawing pictures.)

2. words but no pictures (very interesting blog about a taxi driver who is a phd holder)

Interesting isn't it?

card reader

I gave my dad my old card reader which I got off 7dayshop which sells pretty cheap gadgets(though not a lot) and accessories. Fortunately when I went back to UK, the card reader was on offer! 2.49pounds, buy one free one! inclusive of delivery charge as well! super good deal. I believe you can't get that kind of price in Msia as one card reader costs at least RM20 (daddy told me).

link

It's not the fanciful type and pretty basic but it is good enough for me. I don't need to insert my cable into my bulky camera to transfer photos.

class started

Classes has finally started.

It feels weird when I stepped into the house after not being there for 3 months. It looked different. And smelt different too!

Fortunately the first week of the term wasn't that harsh for me. I had days off on Tues and Thurs so I had time to catch up on my sleep due to the lack of it in the plane.

Still missing everyone much at home.

me parents:

me brothers:


me rabbit! Seems like you have gained weight after I have gone ehhh?

super cute dagui

my friends!

Ai Fei (the girl in the bottom pic, on the left just in case you dunno how I look like) has been my bestest friend for 16 yrs. Time flies! She isn't as lucky as some of us who is able to study overseas or even just over the South China Sea, but I really admire her determination to work and study at the same time. Tuition fees and car loan all forked out from her own pocket! Stay strong girl...I hope things will get better for you

***

I can't believe that I have just updated 2 entries. It something which happens once in a bluemoon. I have lost the zest to blog anymore as I feel that time is better spent sleeping than writing blog. tsk tsk tsk. It's almost 12am now, I have decided to keep a healthy sleeping habit. Nite nite now I'm gonna hit the sack.


PS: ohhh I probably blog about the mole hahaha if things turn out well. i'm so glad that i'm no more working already! but with hectic 4th yr schedule + SSCs, i cant slack too much

of pizza and sweet buns

When I was in Malaysia, I had the opportunity to make pizza and sweet buns for my 3 forever hungry brothers.

I got the recipe from this site which has very reliable, good and easy to make recipes for many food. You can get the pizza recipe here and the sweet buns recipe here.

I have had very very bad experience in making bread or anything that has 'yeast' as one of its ingredients. My dough wouldn't rise, my dough was too sticky, my buns turned out as hard as rock...

UK (winter) weather is just not suitable to proof my dough especially in that cold kitchen of mine. I remember having to *ehem* sleep *ehem* with the container containing the dough so that there was enough warmth for the dough to proof. ahhhh...such days hahah. Perhaps it's the time and effort wasted when making the buns has made me scared to touch any recipe that has any yeast in it.

Anyway, when I went home to Miri during summer, I tried making cakes and swiss roll which faileeeeeed. :( Reason: the quality of the ingredients which was so bad yet so expensive in Miri and it was the equipment I used in Miri. I wasn't used to it.

middle layer collapse. FAILED

So finally on the last week I was in Miri, I 'coaxed' myself to make pizzas and sweet buns for my brothers as they were pestering me to make ever since I came back.

Fortunately the house has a breadmaking machine so I threw all the ingredients into the machine knead the dough for me while I slept :P.

I just had to grate the cheese and cook the toppings. And it was puuurrrrfect.

recipe here

by right the cheese gratings should be bigger but that's the only grater I've got in the house. The presentation wasn't that good but the boys finished it in 10 min! Seeing them eat with gusto is already a great satisfaction for me :)

The sweet buns I made was surprisingly good too. In Jon's verbatim, 'this is definitely better than those I bought from the pastry shops'. So flattering.

recipe here

Once again the presentation isn't that up to standard but the taste is unmistakably good. I was supposed to use egg wash to make the buns 'shine' lol. I like the soft yet not too fluffy texture it has. My sweet buns just revolved around sausage and sausage and sausage because that was the only thing the boys love eating in the house.

Although the buns don't look that nice here, but do make those sweet buns if you have time, provided that you have a good weather. They taste really good! I took the dough out from the bread machine for some extra kneading for fear that the dough wouldn't be soft.

Although the price of milk is almost the same as in UK, I resorted to using milk made from milk powder. Baking cakes in Malaysia has taught me an important skill, that is improvisation - to substitude some ingredients for something cheaper. Something which I have learnt after the failure of the oreo cheesecake. argh. Anyway, happy baking!

awareness test

This is a very interesting video. Do watch if you have time coz it's only 1 minute!

Bye

Bye bye Miri.

bye bye Malaysia.

I will miss everything in it =(

Gonna miss my family:

*insert family picture which I currently don't have in my laptop*

miss my driver hahaha:

forever that blur looking but drives me wherever I go

The people:

Big Apple doughnuts. I love their duren duren to bits because I love anything with durians. Can't get enough of them!

real durian meat inside

Durian ice-cream, another favourite of mine. The durian taste is so strong that I think the durian meat was literally blended into cream. It's can be found in the small stall called 'tasty corner' located directly opposite Big Apple in Bintang megamall.


Food!
Not only this dish called 'dian mian mu' (in foochow) but others too!



and not to mention the drinks as well: teh-c beng special or 三色奶茶

There are still quite a few more pictures which I need to upload but I havent got them in my laptop now. This post will continue soon. Tata!

financial education?

Adapted from this article in BBC:

The UK government is spending £11.5m to help its citizen to manage their finances better. As part of this project, local schools were visited and children were given personal finances lessons. To ascertain the level of financial knowledge these children (all aged nine) already have, some questions were asked and one of these was how much does a house in the UK cost.

A house on average cost £150,000.

One said £1,256.

Another said £3,000 for a big house.

****

So I decided to ask my brothers, Joshua and TT how much the house they are living in cost.

Joshua, aged 10.5, said, 'hmm..I think it's RM10m'. Then he hestitated, and finally said, 'no, no..it's RM100m!'

Timothy, aged 12, when asked, gave the question a deep thought. But finally he said, 'I don't know'.

'Just say any amount TT, what do you think?' I prompted.

'Hmmm...I think it's Rm160k'. He said carefully, watching my expression. 'Mummy told me before but I can't remember already'.

I know that a semi detached house in my area cost RM300k. So the house I'm living in, which is a detached house, is definitely more than that amount.

If Timothy answered that question 25 years ago, he would have got the correct answer. Haha. Seems like mummy have to update him on the prices of houses now.