The Cure is More Dangerous than the Disease

H1N1 .. questions?

"The cure is more dangerous than the disease", says President of the non-proft Vaccine Information Centre in the USA, Barbara Loe Fisher.

The following is from an article by Dr. Mercola (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/04/Warning-Swine-Flu-Vaccine-Coming-Soon.aspx)
School Children May Face Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations
I was hoping mandatory vaccinations would not happen, but it now appears as though that's exactly what we might be facing in the near future.
In the video above, Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) warns that there is a campaign underway to turn schools into virtual vaccination clinics, and children will be the first to be injected with experimental swine flu vaccines.
Part of the reasoning for this is that it appears people over the age of 50 have more cross-reacting antibodies against the current swine flu virus, whereas children who have never been exposed to any of the strains before are more vulnerable.
The Post Gazette recently reported experts saying, "if the new H1N1 flu comes back in force this fall, it might be better to vaccinate children first," because "in the early stages of the epidemic this spring, the new flu strain has caused "explosive outbreaks" among schoolchildren who have no immunity to it."
Again, it's troubling to see health officials using the term "explosive outbreaks" for a flu that in the vast majority of cases has been reported to be very mild.
Making matters worse, they want to target children who have underlying health problems, i.e. the most vulnerable of the group, which means any potential problems with this untested vaccine will have the capacity to do maximum damage.

Why are We Putting Up With the Same Mistakes Again?
The current evolution of public health decisions has disturbing similarities to previous swine flu vaccine catastrophes'. The last swine flu threat emerged in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.
However, within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the experimental vaccine. Several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after their injections. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.
Meanwhile, the deadly swine flu pandemic itself NEVER materialized…
When a vaccine is developed in a mere 13 weeks, you can be virtually assured that it has NOT had the time to be tested in clinical trials to determine safety and effectiveness.
The way I see it, we now stand poised to experience a repeat of the last dangerous swine flu vaccine, which destroyed the lives of hundreds of healthy young boys and girls.
The real kicker, of course, is the fact that if the new vaccine turns out to be a killer, the pharmaceutical companies responsible have immunity from any lawsuits -- something I've also warned about before on numerous occasions.
Absolutely no one stands to be liable if this vaccine turns out to be a health
disaster.

So far, the swine flu has claimed a mere 332 lives WORLDWIDE (as of July 1), 116 of the deaths occurred in Mexico.
To keep this in perspective, the regular flu (not the swine flu) has allegedly killed 13,000 in the U.S. since January, although there is strong support that these types of figures are grossly exaggerated to increase vaccine sales. However, the fact remains that the regular flu at this point in time is FAR more dangerous than the swine flu, and were you worried about the regular flu before the media started hyping up this exotic new "killer flu"?

Another article to read is by Dr. Zona Rona: http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/oct09_pg32feat
It provides other useful links about the H1N1 flu

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

After reading the book I decided to watch the movie.
The following is the trailer:



It still leaves me speechless..
The book itself isn't very long and it is written through the eyes of an 8yr old.. there is a minimal difference btwn book and movie and both broke my heart. I recommend reading the book and watching the movie because the book expresses little things that are quite relevant to the degree innocense and ignorance of these children (for example the use of words such as 'Out-With' instead of Auschwitz, 'The Fury' instead of the Fuhrer).

(Oh and it isn't based on a true story.. but that's irrelevant)

Night- Elie Wiesel

An autobiography... a true story of a fifteen year old boy's experience in Aushwitz.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself.
Never", p 34.

"What are you, my God? I thought angrily. How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go troubling this poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?", p 66 .

"I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. in the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger". xx

Autumn Glory

The pavement flashing in fall colour; all the leaves under my feet.
How suddenly the dark grey turned into hues of gold, yellow, and orange.
My eyes trying to outline every leaf on the golden blanket I walked on.
Never before was I awake to encapture this sight, autumn in its full glory.
As of today I decided this is my favourite season of the year.. lest it stay this warm and its colour never fade!

Convocation 2009

This is a Video of the Fall 2009 Convocation =)

My convocation was held on Thursday October 22 at 9:30 am.

I very much liked being amidst my fellow peers and graduates! The ceremony itself was amusing and had a very family-like atmosphere, which I felt very comfortable in.

The faculty speaker was introduced by one of our professors as a person with "little experience, little fame, but with great advice".. and the best advice she gave us all was "Marry Rich!".. lol! At this we all got a good crack =)

Aneways, the Bachelor of Science in Biology diplomas are awarded at the time "1:17" into the video. I am the second one going up.. ahaha.. I laugh at myself watching this =P

http://www.ryecast.ryerson.ca/dmpstreams/convocationfall2009/index.asp

My dad started the whole "name- yelling" thing at the ceremony lol.. oh man! I was laughing on stage when I heard my name.

Mr. G. Raymond Chang and I

Congrats to all!!!!!!!!!!!

There are times when there is a friend in need..
a time when a friend needs an attentive listener and a helping hand.

I don't want to give up and I don't want to neglect you..
but sometimes what truly breaks my heart is knowing that you are suffering while I am occupied with my everyday rituals with very limited time to be there for you.

I hate that and I am sorry.

Frankie Hunny, You're Too Good For Me

lmfao.wma

What a lovely Monday afternoon.. and I spent most of it fooling around with recording a couple of snips from the song "Night and Day". It wasn't easy! and in this version I came up with my own lyrics after the youtube page with lyrics escaped me haha. I like it the best :P

What You Say

Can't get this outta my heaadd.. Wha- wha - wha.. What did she sayyy?

Ugh

I need some better recording devices... =(

I've been meaning to put up my videos on piano lol.
But I've failed technologically. * I'm Sad

Adele

Heard this song to the Burberry Fall Collection at the Milan Fashion Week. Stunning.

I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the ppl n the government
Everybody taking different sides
Shows that we aint gunna stand shit
Shows that we are united



Love her sound, love her look: a real, down to earth girl!
She hasn't been popularized yet and I hope she doesn't turn Lady Gaga.

Water- St. Thomas, Nevada

By doing some extra research on a book that I am currently reading, I stummbled upon the term "ghost town". The town of St. Thomas is one of the many ghost towns in the state of Nevada. It was abandoned by all its residents due to the formation of Lake Mead, a reservoir that flooded the whole town upon the completion of the Hoover Dam in 1938. The town was under 100 ft of water for sixty years. However, in the past decade it begun exposing itself once more due to the receding water levels of the Lake. This is amazing in terms of both history and science (The combination of those two fields sparks an automatic interest in me). Barely anything of the town remains and it truly is astonishing comparing maps and pictures of what was there before and what lies there now. I can rammble on and on about my thoughts about this.. admiring how man can create something as large as a lake, use it to his advantage then be left with nothing. In the end nature wins. This creates a discussion for another topic: climate change! Decreasing amounts of freshwater, decreasing populations of fish.. where does Canada stand.. and should Canada be allowed to "sell or exploit" fresh water to less fortunate nations who lack this valuable resource? That's a topic for another day haha.

How To Be

"I'm going through some kind of quarter life crisis". Omg I nearly fell off my chair when I heard that.

The movie follows the everyday life of Arthur, who is at an unhappy moment in his life and is searching for his place in the world. Art has a degree in music, has two loyal friends, volunteers at a community centre, and just got dumped by his girl. His parents don't show him affection and he begins to blame all his problems on them. He decides to write to a Canadian author of a book titled "It's Not Your Fault", of which the author decides to help Art with his problems by living his life with him. In the end, the author does not help and Art slowly and very timidly gets his life back on track by himself.

I liked the film because of its indie feel. It is very realistic and Rob's acting is quite good. However, the trailer is more exciting than the film itself.. and if its excitement you're after, then I do not reccommend this film. There were some parts in it that I found hillarious.. mainly Art's inability to make the most of certain situations.. for example, with girls. His friend is teasing a girl and says, "this is really turning me on", and proceeds to laugh. Art on the other hand holds his drink stifly and with a proper english accent says "Yes, I have an erection".. haha! 2 Funny. Put simply Art is a delicate, lost, and ignorant soul.. he is so timid and innocent. I also love how he gives himself props infront of the mirror in the trailer.. haha.

For full movie:
http://www.wisevid.com/gateway.php?viewkey=d75efc30d93e0c500bf6

Ghost Rider (under construction)

I look at my hands.

Fingerless leather gloves, a delicate gold ring on my ring finger, nails painted cherry red.

These are the things I see and the only things I see directly infront of me that are directing where I am and where I am about to go. I focus on how ghetto my hands look. "You're such a bad ass", I say to myself amused. But I suppose this is the feeling I've been longing for, to run that very thin line of being controlled and being completely out of control.

My fingers, holding tightly to the black leather of the steering wheel, define a simple truth that highlights the intensity of the moment. This touch connects us, man and machine, and controls our co-dependence. I press my forehead against the wheel and listen to the gentle vibration of the car. I feel the turns of your engine. You feel the heavy pulsing of my heart.

My attention briefly switches to the road. The fog makes me uncertain of how much of it I really see. Of course it would have helped having the headlights on but that's something I would have done yesterday. Not tonight. Tonight, is my escape. An escape from a ritual which is my perfectly planned life.

So I wait.
In this darkness I forget what it is I am looking for. I forget from whom I am running or is it whom I am chasing? I wait for that single undefinable moment that releases my anguish and separates my thoughts from my mind.

A car speeds by.

I feel a spark inside of me.
(A spark? How slow motion that sounds!)
In a split second, NO! in a split quarter of a second there is lightning inside of me. A feeling so fast that it fails to be classified as anything humanly possible. No thinking, for thinking takes too long. No analyzing, for there isn't time to relinquish a single thought. Only acting and releasing that passive agressive.

The decision now belongs to my right foot, how hard it presses down and for how long.
I slam the acceleration and curve out of the sleeve where I was parked, lights turned off.

Sixty, seventy.. eighty kilometres an hour.

I swurve past a truck full of cattle (Mooo! lol).
"This one is impeccably fast", I think to myself. I chase the red car as if I were chasing my destiny, in full view but far from reach. He must be aware of my intensions by now. Why else would he still be accelerating, tempting me? Or maybe he doesn't see me at all and he's running from his own ghosts.

A red light coming up. Perfect. By now I am on his tale. I decide to stop to the left of him. A rusty little car he has. It had some work done though. Souped up with a spoiler, a lowered frame... neon lights? Were those necessary?

"Hey Ghost Rider!", I hear through my window. Ghost rider? "Nice", I say to myself. How appropriately cheesy that sounds. I let down my guard and slide my window open. "Nice car you got there", he says. "Can't say the same about you", I muffle under my breath. I proceed to smile at him and reply, "I like yours too, vintage?". He laughs, "Not as good as yours but it does wonders! Just wait and see", he turns his lights off and throws in a VROOM.

I roll my eyes. Unless he has some nitrous oxide under that hood, he doesn't stand a chance. I accept the challenge, and VROOM back.

Green light.
In an instant my heart feels weightless. I lose the red car instantly. But really, what do I care where he is. I am weightless and I am finally free.

I believe

I believe in pink.
I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
I believe in kissing, kissing a lot!
I believe in being strong,
when everything seems to be going wrong.
I believe that happy girls..
are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day,
and I believe in miracles.

-Audrey Hepburn

I believe in everything this woman stood for ..living a happy life =) ..but pink? I don't know. I believe in green =D

Finally a Reed Diffuser!

I am obsessed with Winners and Kitchen Stuff Plus nowadays lol.

I bought meself some orange EMU boots on sale for 50$ last week.. and this week I added another jacket to my jacket collection =D

I got a hold of this beige, almost Burberry, trench coat that falls slightly above the knees. Sooo in love with it right now!

And at Kitchen Stuff Plus.. I finally got a reed diffuser! I always wanted one of those =) and now finally my quest is complete. I chose a smell that reminds me of my bf.. "fresh linen" lol! So now I can have a similar scent to him in my room.. how weird does that make me? lol w/e tho, it makes me happy =)

"So, I Would be His First Girlfriend"

Here's a little taste of Nightlight (Twilight parody) before it hits the bookshelves:

A computer sat before him on the table. He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room—maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.

“What is that?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was it wasn’t avian.

“That’s Edwart Mullen,” Lucy said.

Edwart. I had never met a boy named Edwart before. Actually, I had never met any human named Edwart before. It was a funny sounding name. Much funnier than Edward.

As we sat there, gazing at him for what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than the entire lunch period, his eyes suddenly flicked toward me, slithering over my face and boring into my heart like fangs. Then in a flash they went back to glowering at that screen.

“He moved here two years ago from Alaska,” she said.

So not only was he pale like me, but he was also an outsider from a state that begins with an “A.” I felt a surge of empathy. I had never felt a connection like this before.

“That boy’s not worth your time,” she said wrongly. “Edwart doesn’t date.”

I smirked inwardly and snorted outwardly. So, I would be his first girlfriend.

On Long Distance

"It's so difficult to explain. We trust eachother 150%.. and having that distance (as corny as it sounds) makes us stronger. Every time we talk to one another is like a high.. cuz we don't talk often.. so it just feels really good when we do. And only conversation is what I look forward to.. just knowing he'll always be there feels better than anything else in the world.."

Nighlight

LOL!
Twilight vs. Nightlight!

On November 3rd, a parody of the Twilight Saga hits the bookstores. After reading a small summary of the book, I must say that I am impressed.. and giggling at all the obsessed tweens out there. The plot is very laugh-out-loud! It explores the mind of a delusional teenager who is so obsessed with her high school crush that she imagines and wrongly claims he is a vampire. Now, THIS story I can believe.
Here's a more detailed overview of the book:

"The book, published by Random House's Vintage Books imprint, will hit your local bookstore on November 3. According to EW.com, it will focus on a young lady named Belle Goose, who is described as "pale and klutzy." When she moves to Switchblade, Oregon, she meets a fellow high school student named Edwart Mullen.

Belle, who has an obsession with vampires, convinces herself that the "super-hot computer nerd with zero interest in girls" is one because he does things she considers supernatural like leaving his Tater Tots untouched at lunch and saving her from a flying snowball."

For more plz visit http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1623370/story.jhtml

BadaBoom!

Apparently AlleyCatz is the place to be for this type of scene =)
Can't wait to get my swing on!

Quick Vid of Dinner

Rushing through this vid...Amor's like WTF?

But this is what I made for dinner today =)

There goes being a vegetarian haha.. no seriously, I made this for my folks (the meat lovers).. I might get tempted into trying a little bit =P



P.S- The potatoes with "herbs and stuff" are killlerrr!
for lack of words..haha

Meet Me Halfway

OMG @ all the spelling mistakes.. frigg ppls, edit!

Convocation

Got two ticks in the mail today =)

Oh Happy Day! Convocation is near... October 22 =)
Its odd that the 22cnd of October is a Thursday hmm... Sorry Boo u're not invited lol ..cuz u can't make it anyway =(

*Sigh.. Update: Graduation= not so happy day! .. yes it should be this huge celebratory achievement but some ppl from the fams can't make it.. and I might have to work that day too. Bleh, looks like another graduation missed! Won't be the first time.. but it won't be a big deal either.

Thirty Four

One day I will be thirty four.

Will I be a wife.. a mother?
Or will my life take an unexpected turn..
Will I have a beautiful home?
Or will I travel endlessly not able to settle down..
Will I be hott, fun, and spontaneous?
Will I still laugh at every little funny moment that everyday will bring?

HA! and will I still chat on msn?

One day I will be thirty four.
What an odd yet thrilling thought.

Kitchen Stuffs

So I made myself some cabbage soup =) haha and it turned out reallllllyyy well!

It was the first soup I made.. ever! It tastes kind of like the sweet and sour soup from Mandarin.

6 green onions, 2 large peppers, 1 can of tomatoes (diced), 3 carrots, 1 cabbage, 1 box of mushrooms, Lipton onion soup mix.. and 12-15 cups of water..

you cut those up, mix em together..and then season for flavour! DONE