My Creation Part 16

This is my bento for the boys over the weekend again. This time, i want to try to do a "panda" hahahhahaha, hmmmmm, not very look alike, but my sons did tell me, it's "panda" :)
Last weekend is a simple lunch, all is instant, luncheon meat and nuggets, just fried it. :) I do the same for the "two tuition teachers" but i think i forgot to take the picture??

Well, i am not a creative person, actually i got all the idea from other "pro bento mummies", i salute them for being so creative, little & simple thing they can make it so pretty, i like to read their website and blog, at least i can get some idea what to do for my sons. :)


rice panda, aeroplane shape lucheon meat, nuggets and grapes.

This is Sunday Bento lunch, rice with sweet and sour meat, and

apples and with a quail egg, using the quail egg mould to do the "dog"

printed, but cannot see clearly. Try to do four eggs, but two fail, one the egg

too big and broke and the other egg too small to fit the mould :(

Happy bento-ing everyone

coming soon...

How is your Earth Hour ?

How is your Earth Hour? Did you participate in? I'm glad to said that, we did! Before this, we can see and read a lot about Earth Hour 2009 on TV, magazines, news, advertisement and this is also the first year Malaysia join in too, i feel excited and i thought i want to join in by just switch off the light for one hour and kept the homes dark in support of the international effort against global warming.

On the other hand, i do think my in laws or other family member will think i'm nuts by switching off the light for one hour. Yesterday morning while i am preparing lunch for the kids, i told my sil whether she heard about Earth Hour 2009 or not, she said yes, then we two said maybe we should just switch off the light and maybe at that hour we also out for our dinner. Me and hub and the boys were out for dinner around 7.50pm, we went to KL area to have some simple dinner, before we went out i switch off most of the light, except one in the living hall. By the time we finished dinner it's about 8.50pm, we can see most building off their light, KLCC, KL Tower, Berjaya Times Square, all in the dark. Nearby our house, we also cannot see mid valley building and also "The Garden" signnage, the telecom building were keep in the dark.

Back home, i surprise to see my sil had off all the lights!! Even the parent in law house too! Since it's dark and the time is around 9.05pm so i thought i just let the boys run around at the house compound, and wait till 9.30pm. My boys keep ask me why the house so dark, why got no light, i told them, there will be light at 9.30pm so we waited. One of the maid did try to on the light, i told her no no, don't on the light till 9.30pm, they must be wondering why. hahahhahahha

This is my Earth Hour 2009! :)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Mark Herman, 2008)

Absolutely nothing differentiates Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas from any other conventional Holocaust film except for the fact that Herman's film, especially because its protagonists are innocent children caught in the middle of man-made tragedies, reeks of emotional blackmail. While Herman manages to keep the film's affairs told from a comfortable distance, more like a dark fable rather than a historical anecdote (which it is not, since the film is adapted from a novel by John Boyne, and the novel's very premise, about a Jewish kid living and working inside one of Nazi's concentration camps, is a near-impossibility since Jewish children never lasted in concentration camps as they are immediately killed by the Nazis), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does not graduate from merely reiterating the blatant absurdity of the Holocaust, only this time, without an ounce of subtlety.

That is precisely the biggest problem I have with Herman's Holocaust film. Other than depicting those turbulent times from perspective of an innocent kid (looking back though, Roberto Benigni's syrupy Life is Beautiful (1997), with its annoyingly clueless father Benigni wrote and portrayed, is the top offender in utilizing both innate and manufactured naivete to questionable acclaim from the Academy), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas hardly has anything new to contribute to the largely stagnant genre. To make matters worse, Herman handles the material with such unnecessary reverence, gathered from the overly tasteful cinematography and its ceremonial plotting, that it becomes unbelievably off-putting and quite ironically, rather tasteless, quite similar to being lectured on elementary morality with the intricate yet infuriating flourish of an overly eager kindergarten teacher.

Bruno (Asa Butterfield, pale and wide-eyed, like a wet hatchling), the film's juvenile protagonist who was plucked from the city with his older sister (Amber Beattie) and mother (Vera Farmiga) by his father (David Thewlis) who is a high ranking Nazi officer newly assigned to the countryside, becomes the audience's eyes and ears in the film. We follow Bruno when he, out of curiosity and boredom, sneaks from his new home to the nearby concentration camp, which he mistakes for a farm, where he befriends Shmuel (Jack Scanlon, whose exaggeratedly pitiful exterior elicits the same predatorial feel from an overly eager mendicant), a Jewish kid from inside the camp. Unfortunately, Bruno is such a feebly conceived character, a character that lazily and conveniently utilizes childhood as an excuse for absolute gullability and dumb curiosity, that following the narrative through his perspective becomes such a difficult chore because his character stretches the bounds of plausible human psychology for the purpose of arriving at its much-awaited glory note.

The film's glory note, a climactic sequence that pits the sad fate of Bruno and Shmuel and the desperate scramblings of Bruno's family, is hardly glorious at all. When the pandemonium, the onscreen suffocation, the dullness and drabness of the reality that Bruno has realized takes over the initial glossy and stately trappings of the film, the shift is so incomprehensibly sudden and forecful that it borders on being ridiculous and laughable. I understand that the finale only emphasizes the grandiose absurdities of the Holocaust, yet Herman's operatic finale, oddly reminiscent of such cult Nazi treats like Tinto Brass' Salon Kitty (1976) or Don Edmonds Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975) where shock substitutes for empathy, only backfires, especially in a way that it seems to be the only entertaining bit in the entire film.

The result I got then is rather confused: when Herman should have elicited empathy, or at least disbelief, shock, even anger, what I got, however, was a guilty moment of befuddled delight. If one needs a reminder of the atrocities of the Nazis without the pseudo-artistry and bluntness of a misguided craftsmen, Alain Resnais' Night and Fog (1955) is what I recommend. It is only a third of the running time of Herman's overindulgent Holocaust film, but Resnais' meditative explorations of a real concentration camp is haunting and deep enough to leave a lasting dent in one's senses. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, being a tasteless redundancy, is just a waste of time.

My Creation Part 15

This is the bento lunch that i prepare for my sons over last weekend. I did prepare for the "two small tuition teachers" also, similar to my sons one, all having noodles on Saturday, since the cousins are rushing for their tuition class, and i was super late to serve the lunch, so just do a quick work and with little deco and somemore my maid make things worst, make me angry and i don't have any mood to do a better one. :( Now i realise when you have mood, the bento can look better. :)



Noodles with egg star shape and an "octopus" - first try, after i fail it last round. :P
Pork chop and kiwi. It can look a bit better
if i can add more little extra detail on it.




This is the lunch bento on Sunday.
Try to do a cute face, first try, but look like the face a bit "out"
need more practise.
Rice, tulip lucheon meat in flower shape and meat with sauce
and two types of fruits.





Happy Bento-ing everyone.

Daddy's 1st.........

time handle the boys for half a day to bring them out to do their passport, but of course with the help from the "lazy princess" maid. :) (i must jot this down, because this is his first!!) hahahahah

Yes, we are bringing the boys for a holiday beginning of next month, it is my long-long-overdue holiday and this is also for my boys 4th year old birthday present. :) Actually we plan to go holiday in month of Feb, but my colleague was away for her maternity leave and only be back end of March, so we have to postpone our holiday to April. We will bring the boys to see Mickey Mouse, the place no other than Hong Kong lo. We never been to Hong Kong, this is our FIRST, hahahhahaha, so "kampung" huh??

After planning the trip, settle air ticket and hotel accomadation then we have to 'worry" when and who will bring the boys to do passport!! I had been asking daddy to bring the boys to do passport, because i can't take any leave, and since he is off on Monday, so will be easier. Always Monday off day, daddy will have his own things to do, and also "i think" he is worried he cannot handle the boys with the maid alone. hahahhaha

Today, must give him a thumbs up for handle the boys from morning till late afternoon. Morning, we bring the boys to have breakfast (yes, they skip school today, since they are still having flu and cough), after breakfast, sent me to work, then they off to Damansara Immigration. Daddy called after 1 hour plus saying that system was down, so cannot do the passport today!! This is what i hate most, when u take leave and go and do passport, then you will get the answer like system down, power failure lei, this and that all the execuse, there go your day off! The officer at the immigration told daddy can come on Sat and Sun as immigration are open on Sat and Sun from 8am till 1pm!! WOW! This is really a good news to those working mum or those who cannot go on weekdays and now can go on weekends!! For KL area, it is only at Damansara Immigration.

Since it is still early, daddy try his luck at Sri Rampai @ Setapak, he reach there around 11 something, take number, queue, submit and waited, the boys got the passports around 3pm! Service had improve, compare to last time, we have to queue since early morning and waited till afternoon. On the other hand, actually i'm quite worried, on off will give them a call see how are the boys doing. hahahhahaha. Lucky morning i did pack some cake and ceral to put in the bento box for the boys to munch, otherwise i think they will super hungry since they have to wait till afternoon.

Overall, i think "they are" all doing ok, beside than i heard over the phone, daddy shouting like "don't run!" "come here!" Should be no any "big drama" happen. :P

Now i can minus out one to-do list from my list already. :) Phew! Thank you daddy!

My Creation Part 14

School holiday started, i also take a break on my daily bento-ing. This is what i serve to my sons and also the two "small tuitions teacher" on last week.


Daily snack bento - trying out on the two different size star
shape cutter from Daiso. Bread with cheese and Fearles with
Dragon fruit and Cruz with strawberry.


Bahulu with cheese flower on top, cereal and papaya.



swiss roll, cereal, kiwi and snacks.


this is the lunch that i prepare for the cousin brother, since
i am preparing for the two older sister i prepare one for him too.
Rice, baked bean, mince meat and grapes and a "monster" quail egg.

this is the two bento lunch for the "tuition teachers".

my sons with the same food but instead of flower i use star.

Then fruits with strawberry and sweet plum.

Happy bento-ing everyone. :)

Busy week with mum and grandpa in town

My mummy, my grandpa and my uncle (my mother elder brother) was in town last week. Last minute trip as my grandpa was here to do his body check up.

They were here on last Monday afternoon, and so coincident my brother was here too for the business trip, hardly can get so many people together in one time, unless i was back in hometown, so i arrange a dinner and also a surprise small birthday celebration for my grandpa, he will celebrate his 80 years old birthday next month, and i will not be home, so i thought i just celebrate it earlier.


signature duck from Magic Wok


Pork belly with salted fish


duo kailan, yummy...


veal meat

We had our dinner at Magic Wok at Damansara Utama, foods was nice and my grandpa love the foods a lot. After dinner, i get my boys to sang birthday song to their great grandfather, and cut the birthday cake together. Everyone was too full after the dinner, each of us just had a small piece of cake, balance i brought it home.


me and my mummy and my boys


Fearles


Cruz


the birthday cake


my boys with their great grand father


me and my younger brother. :) Look alike??

Whole week was busy, my mother and grandpa they all are staying at my grandpa's brother house, everyday after work i will spent sometime with my mum, to bring her for a quick shopping or go to the uncle house to see my grandpa, only one night that i have to teach my sons on their homework so i didn't meet up with my mum.

My grandpa hardly go travelling, now he is quite old and his leg are a bit weak so cannot walk too far. This trip, his brother arrange him to come over and have the medical check up and at the same time his brother also organise a trip to Koh Samui for all "Law family" the brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. My grandpa and my mum didn't join them as my grandpa miss his "home" very much, after all the check up they went back on saturday. Since everyone will be coming over to meet here then only go for the Koh Samui trip, my uncle (grandpa's brother) at the same time also arrange a house warming for his new houses. Four houses "warming" in one time. They bought four houses together, one house for the uncle, the other three is for the sons and daughter. I can said it's a great gathering for the family member. I have not see some of the aunties and uncles for ages, this is a great time to catch up with them and we had a great time. They are having stalls parties as house warming dinner, got famous damansara char keow teow stall, yong tau foo, nasi beriyani with curry chicken and lamb, roti canai, teh tarik, two roast lamb, tempura, satay, assam laksa and etc, i find it is really unique or i'm "kampung" never come accross this stalls parties before. :) We stay till about 10.30pm then bid good bye to the host and my grandpa and my mum and uncles then we back home. Next day, my mum they all got an early flight to catch.


this is the I-Damansara in Damansara Heights, i took this when i
visit them during chinese new year


front of the house view

house warming party


my boys with their poh poh


this is one of the art given by the "big ppl" to my
uncle (black and white stripe is my uncle - grandpa's brother)
saw a familiar face here?? *wink wink*

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)

America is not limited to its great cities, those centers of modern civilization that supposedly gave birth to its expansive culture. The Statue of Liberty, symbol of the timeless American Dream, stands as entrance to one of America's greatest cities, welcoming ambitious dreamers from the rest of the world to a land that would serve as stage to their limitless endeavors. However, a great irony enshrouds this perpetuated migration to America: that upon a migrant's landing on American soil, he is immediately bamboozled into a matrix of mediocrity, with his dreams and ambitions frozen in the meantime as he struggles to graduate from the dehumanizing work-a-day world that the real America symbolizes. He is temporarily placated by facile pleasantries, packaged neatly into rows of pretty prefabricated homes that serve as nests to America's perfect families, or so we think. American suburbia happens to be one beautifully perpetuated lie that is slowly blossoming into a dreary nightmare.

Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road is not the first film to have tackled American suburbia as the dangerously engulfing illusion that it really is. Mendes' first film, American Beauty (1999), has earned accolades precisely for its supposedly fearless indictment of the American family for the vices that it tries too hard to repress. In fact, an entire genre has evolved from such cinematic discourse. Ang Lee, in The Ice Storm (1997), is more successful in fleshing out the dysfunctions of a suburban family amidst the worsening weather and the political climate. David Lynch, in Blue Velvet (1986), Twin Peaks (1990-1991), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006), blurs reality to create suburban terrains, operating more like inescapable bad dreams than melodramas or satires.

In Revolutionary Road, Mendes tracks a the journey of the Wheelers, a seemingly ideal American couple, from being ambitious starry-eyed lovers to suffocated prisoners of a Pennsylvanian suburb. Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) commutes daily to New York to a thankless job in a sales company where his father also worked for until the day he died. April (Kate Winslet), Frank's reliable housewife, consumes her day with motherly, wifely, and neighborly chores: keeping her two children safe as she maintains the house in a pleasant condition, more to please her nosey neighbors than herself. When it occurred to her that their plasticine suburban lifestyle has stripped them of the virtues that got them together in the first place, they decide to escape to Paris: for Frank to finally figure out what it is that he truly wants to do as April works for the family. The couple's ambition, however, is the opposite of everything that America stands for, and even before the dream nears its fruition, everything falls apart, forcing Frank and April's relationship to crumble as well.

Revolutionary Road, through its chronicling of an American couple's demise to what is essentially a ludicrously staged dead end, summarizes the scathing repercussions of the so-called American daydream, hypnotizing families into a system of monotony and order with the comforts of a boxed and pre-planned life. Mendes hams it up, making sure that all confrontations escalate to grandiose shouting matches, or all the encounters of the couple with John Givings (Michael Shannon), a mathematician-turned-psychiatric patient, are the film's sanest moments. Somehow, Mendes is successful in depicting a topsy-turvy environment, where romance, much more than a give-and-take scenario, partakes of a predatorial relationship, with husband and wife manipulating each other to arrive at an amicable end; and neighbors aren't what they seem to be, establishing relationships that are merely cover-ups for their insecurities, envy, and lust.

Mendes transforms the American landscape into a Darwinian arena, where because migration is rendered nugatory, only the strong survive. Contrary to Darwin's theory however, is that in Revolutionary Road, survival is hardly worth an entire lifetime spent struggling to realize the unrealizable American dream.

My sweet talker & very observant sons

*little note to jotted down*

Last Saturday, we want to go out for dinner. After i changed ( i wear a 1/4 pants and a PINK tee, which is an old tee, i hardly wear), i come out from the walk in wardrobe, at the same time my boys also changed and come into the room. When they saw me, they open their eyes so big and said "mummy, you look so nice!!!!" and come and touch my tee and said "very nice, mummy!" hahaha, i had a laugh at their reaction and told them this is mummy old clothes la, not new one. They still keep asking "where u buy?" "who buy?" those question start pop out.

This kind of "reaction" normally happen in Cruz, when he saw me wear in pink or red or skirt (i hardly wear skirt) he will said "mummy, you look so nice!" what a sweet talker sons, but this little praise also make their mummy happy. :)

Homework Part II

After the "1st homework" i think i got a bit "phobia" to see my boys bring home this blue file. hahahhaha.


Second day after back home from gym (it's quite late), first thing i ask maid is "the boys got homework today??" she said "NO" hahhaha, i think the teacher know i will go to gym twice a week, so don't give homework on my work out day?

Actually, the teacher only give twice or thrice a week, so i think is ok. Now maybe i have "master" some way to handle with the homework. Last thurs, i went home after my work, i had a quick dinner then start coaching my sons homework. I hold the hand to write two rows then ask them to do the rest by themselve. I proud to said, Cruz manage to wrote "4" by himself and without the dotted line, but of course in between have to make some "praise" or make some "agreement" like after finish homework can play with the dog, or i will give them ice-cream. hahhaha, this is bad mummy way to teach the boys homework huh. :)

Now i also engage "two little" tuition teacher for my sons, which is my sil's two daughter. Since my boys are close to the two "jie jie" i make a deal with them, after school, if my sons got homework can help me teach them do some first then when i back home i will re-check the homework. The rewards is "I FIX BENTO LUNCH FOR THEM ON WEEKED!!" hahahhaa, two of the girls so thrill when i told the mother about it. Last week i fixed them the first bento, simple one since they are rushing for the tuition class, i have to speed up. Since i am doing for the two elder daughter then i have to do one for the younger brother too, so all three bentos! My sil told me, the kids finish the food without any fuss, usually took them long time to finish the food, sometime can be 2 hours!!!


bento for the two "little tuition teacher" and one for the
brother.



After the cousin went for tuition, i fixed another two more bentos for my sons. :)




Yesterday afternoon, i saw my sons brought back the homework ( monitor through cctv), because i saw the two blue file. I saw the small tuition teacher teach them doing the homework, i feel ease a bit. My mum and grandpa was in town (will blog that in another post), but they are not staying at my place, they are staying at my uncle (grandpa's brother) house. Lucky distance wise quite nearby to my house, but to go to the uncle house a bit "troublesome", the security TOO TIGHT! My mum told me she want to go and get some shoes, i thought after work i can bring her to do some shopping at MV, after reach home, i quickly check my sons homework to see whether they have finish it or not. To my horror, i saw Fearles was writting and while my mil feed him dinner. He still got 2 pages have not finish. I have to rush him, then only i can sent my mum to go for a quick shop. Really bad, i make Fearles to write while he is eating, he is not concentrate, he keep looking at Cruz running around and the cousins talking. I hold his hand to write "5" after two rows, he did manage to write by his own, i praise him doing a good job, can write "5" by himself. After one row, he start day dream again, don't know how to write instead of write "5" he wrote the other way round and can tell me the "c" - under the "5" small little curve is an ear. *faint* To my surprise yesterday Cruz manage to finish the writting with the "tuition teacher" and feel so proud and show me he had finish his homework.

After settle my boys, i bring my mum for a quick shop at MV, then sent her back reach home around 9.30pm. Today teacher told me, yesterday Cruz manage to finish one jigsaw, full of patient but for Fearles, he tell the teacher, he don't know how. This is really surprise, all the while, i thought Fearles will have more patience towards writting and jigsaw but not Cruz, but yesterday Cruz finish the homework and do good on jigsaw. Hmmmm, two of them change their character??