The two most important men in my life

April is a very significant month for me.  It is the birthday month of the 2 most important men in my life, my 2 sons, whose birthdays fall 3 days apart.  It has now become our family tradition to go out for a nice dinner and just some quality bonding time. 

 

Appreciating the peace of mind that I have

For almost a year now I had been lending my ears to a friend who sometimes tell me that she is suffering from physical and emotional abuse at home. According to her he would call her fat and ugly and sometimes he would suddenly get up from his sleep to batter her up in the night. However at other times she would talk to me as though she is in a very loving relationship.   Recently she showed me blue-black bruises on her neck and arm and cried that he was trying to strangle her .  But the very next day she came to me and repeated several times how lucky she was to have a husband who earns a lot of money, is very dependent on her for his daily needs and showers her with expensive gifts and holidays overseas. 

It was really confusing to me.  I really do not know whether I should help her and if I do want to help her, I would not know how to do so.  I feel she is in some kind of trouble and should at least pay a visit to a doctor but I had not dared to suggest. 

While I can't help sometimes worrying for her, it made me appreciate a little bit more, the peace of mind that I have.

When time passes we can neither see nor touch it

Sis Wan Lan and I had just finished the translation of Father's short story "Ten Years of Life by the River Side" published by Nanyang Press Singapore in 1956, in a book entitled "Romance in Malaya". The story he wrote was a true brief story of his life from 1940 to 1956. During that period his work took him to Termerloh (by the Pahang River), Parit (by the Perak River), Sabak Bernam (by the Bernam River) and Parit Buntar (by the Krian River). 

These were the ending paragraphs:

"Ten years of life by the river side had passed by very quickly. Although I had not achieved much, I have no regrets. I know that when time passes we can neither see nor touch it. No amount of strength can stop it and no amount of good or nutritious food or facial creams can conceal our wrinkles. 
Time treats everyone equally. Whether in the villages or in the cities life changes with time. In fact every minute, everything is changing and will forever be in the changing process. 

After a few years where would my life float to? Who can tell me in advance?"

Saroja is fighting child labour in Karnataka's silk industries

Real hero Saroja amma is fighting child labour in Karnataka's silk industries. According to the Census 2011, 12.6 million children work as labourers in India. India has the highest number of child labourers in the world, according to UNICEF.

In the silk twisting units of Magadi, thousands of children are put to work for their nimble fingers. They toil away for long hours, their frail bodies bent over in low-lit factories.  Saroja organised raids and rescued over 1200 children between 1999 and 2005.

May God bless her!

To Retire Well, Invest In Making Friends

How many friends you have, not how much money you have, predicts how happy you're likely to be right after you retire. That's one of the findings from a University of Michigan study suggesting that as baby boomers age, they should probably pay as much attention to their social lives as their financial portfolios.

The study, conducted by a University of Michigan graduate student Alicia Tarnowski and psychologist Toni Antonucci, a senior researcher at the University's Institute for Social Research (ISR), provides evidence that post-retirement changes in life satisfaction are common. It also finds that the size of a recently retired person's social support network, not the size of that person's wallet or state of physical health, is the strongest influence on whether life satisfaction changes for better or worse.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org