Friday, June 22, 2012

When to complete?

I received an email from an activist of the cause that I am writing at present. We met during my fieldwork in Malaysia last year. He said,

"How are you keeping? I trust everything is well with you. How is your thesis coming along, already completed or still writing it. I'm eagerly waiting to read it."

This can be a pressure indeed. Seen from another angle, it is certainly a positive push factor. I really hope I can finish the first draft by end of this year. Nearing July already, the pressure is surely building up.
  

Winter and chilblain

The forecast for today.

What a gloomy day.

Coming from a hot climate, winter is certainly the most challenging for us.

The kids seem fine. Only in the beginning, Ainaa was not well with a bit athmatic symptoms. Thanx Allah, she is doing well now.

Only Mr Daddy has quite serious chilblain this time - the term that only recently I found out. Ammar and me especially had suffered from itchy and swollen toes during the first winter we were here. I thought it was only a simple eczema. At that time, I tried to search through google to find out what it is - using terms such as "cold and itchy toes", "winter and itchy toes" - but they did not lead to this finding, that it was actually chilblains. Only recently I found out that it was a condition caused by cold. Mr Daddy's is quite serious, all his fingers and toes are swollen, itchy and painful.

This is what chilblains is caused of:
What are Chilblains caused by?
When your feet and toes get cold, the blood vessels constrict and the circulation is impaired. In your effort to warm your feet as fast as you can, you may accidentally be causing damage to tiny capillaries and vessels in your toes. Putting your feet into a hot water bath will increase the circulation to your toes, but faster than the blood vessels can expand. The rapid increase in blood pressure can cause the restricted capillaries and cells to rupture, allowing blood to leak into the surrounding tissues. This blood plasma seepage creates the chilblains.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Ammar's gallery




Ammar is into drawing, writing and painting these days. For a 5 year old, his drawing especially amazed me. He is also able to write his own simple sentences. The third picture he drew is about his visit to Werribee Zoo in his school excursion last week.

There is something I notice however. Often he seems to see things from a mirror angle. Once he drew a police car copying a picture of a police car, but whilst the picture that he copied is right-faced, his drawing faced left. And the word "POLICE" is left faced. I also found he wrote the word "AUSTRALIA" facing left.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The kid's gallery

Ammar's drawing today - he said "Mak and me".



Farhan's out of Bright's autumn leaves.

Friday, June 1, 2012

When missing home...


My favourite forever.
Always made me feel like missing the dearests in the far away.

"My Island Home" by Warumpi Band.