Chinese girls

I come home today from uni and the tv was already on Oprah. I overheard part of the program as I made myself a drink and plonked myself in front of tv to watch the rest and then I cried.

What I witnessed was a clip from the 'Dying Rooms' documentary:

the filmmakers showed the unbelievable living conditions in the orphanages they came across. They also found an actual "dying room" where an unwanted baby girl was left 10 days earlier to die. She was named Mei Ming, which means "no name." Mei Ming gave up on her fight to live four days after the filmmakers filmed her. The orphanage denied she ever existed, but the film proves otherwise.

What I witnessed is probably hard to imagine but the image seems burned into my skull now, its probably best described by true vision/sun morning post-1995:

Mei-ming has lain this way for 10 days now: tied up in urine-soaked blankets, scabs of dried mucus growing across her eyes, her face shrinking to a skull, malnutrition slowly shrivelling her two-year old body. The orphanage staff call her room the "dying room", and they have abandoned here for the very same reasons her parents abandoned her shortly after she was born. She is a girl.

It also went on to show a part of Lisa Ling's documentary on what is happening now(well 2004 it's an old episode):

Lisa found that baby girls are still being either aborted or abandoned by the thousands and boys outnumber girls by 17 million. Although the one child per family policy still stands, Lisa says families do have sons and daughters. "In the countryside, you can have more than one child. If your first child is a girl you can try to then have a boy," Lisa says. "The problem is that no matter how you try, you can't force yourself to have a boy. So if you continue to have girls, a lot of these families, they continue to give away or kill baby girls until they have a boy, and some may never have a baby boy.

It also showed American families adopting chinese girls and the actual moment where they saw the girls for the first time and again I cried a little more.

Then I messaged Mr T and said 'when and if we decide to have children I want to adopt a girl from China'.

Gay politics

From the age:

The bill aims to give same-sex couples equal legal rights with married couples. It expects the bill to be passed in May. But it has caused a furore in Federal Parliament.

In a letter to Mr Stanhope, Mr Ruddock said the Government considered same-sex relationships were matters for the states and territories.

But it opposed "any action which would reduce the status of marriage to that of other relationships, or which would create confusion over the distinction between marriage and same-sex relationships".

Mr Ruddock warned that "the Government would take appropriate action, including the introduction of legislation, to prevent this occurring'.

The Commonwealth has no problem with state laws giving same sex couples the same legal rights as married couples. But it objects to the use of marriage celebrants — licensed under federal marriage laws — performing civil union ceremonies, which the ACT bill appears to allow for as well as all other provisions that equate civil unions with marriage.

The bill aims to give same-sex couples equal legal rights with married couples. It expects the bill to be passed in May. But it has caused a furore in Federal Parliament.

In a letter to Mr Stanhope, Mr Ruddock said the Government considered same-sex relationships were matters for the states and territories.

But it opposed "any action which would reduce the status of marriage to that of other relationships, or which would create confusion over the distinction between marriage and same-sex relationships".

Mr Ruddock warned that "the Government would take appropriate action, including the introduction of legislation, to prevent this occurring'.

The Commonwealth has no problem with state laws giving same sex couples the same legal rights as married couples. But it objects to the use of marriage celebrants — licensed under federal marriage laws — performing civil union ceremonies, which the ACT bill appears to allow for as well as all other provisions that equate civil unions with marriage.

It is incredibly sad that same sex couples are not enabled the same rights as straight married couples.

I've been thinking a lot about same sex issues such as marriage lately. It's something I strongly believe in, so what's stopped me from blogging about it?

In some way I feel that as a straight individual I don't have the right to talk about it. I can't really explain it. Lately though i've realised how ridicilous it is. It's like saying a man has no place defending feminism. Besides this is not just gay rights, it is also human rights!

Banning gay marriage and even worse in our sad little state of a country inadequate recognition of civil unions is discrimination.

Human rights in the way of gay issues has such a long long way to go. Sadly I don't think I will have any more chance of seeing a openly gay prime minister as I will a female prime minister of this country. In fact there is probably more of a chance of a female prime minister (think amanda vandstone-ughhhhhhhhhh) than a openly gay one.

I'm feeling signifcantly better and it was just in time for my birthday.

Sat night I had dinner and drinks with a group of friends and was able to enjoy myself without worrying about what I was eating too much. I did however avoid alcohol just to be on the safe side. I took along my camera but had so much fun I forgot to take pics. Mr T did take a pic of his entree that we shared at shakahari:



Sun was my birthday and I went out for yum cha with my family, and then caught a fairy from willimastown to southbank. Here are some pics from along the way:

Underneath the westgate bridge

Petrol station on the water





The health scare has brought back some bad memories. Memories of being sick constantly, feeling that I had no life because I couldn't go out with friends or family members, unable to work or study, unable to
do anything but be sick. It's got me thinking about my diet again. I'm going to be more careful in the future. Nothing is more important that your health!

As part of my new pledge to eat better, I made my own cereal out of oats, chopped up dates, cashews, almonds, maple syrup, pumpkin seeds, and coconut. It is by far the best cereal I have ever tasted but I can't take complete credit though since I got the recipe from Garden of Vegan.

Yay!!!!!!!

I found + made a design a like.

It is staying like this for a while since it took me so long to adjust the colours alone.

I can't stand the acid reflux diet

perhaps the most stuggling things to omit from my diet are: onions, garlic, and tomatos.

Other things to avoid include lemons, oranges, chilli, Peppermint, Chocolate, and fried foods.

Lunch and breakfast are fine but I struggle for ideas for dinner.

Any suggetions?

I am deteremined to be better by the weekend.

Vegan Pizza

Before I got really sick, I decided to play aroung with vegan pizza.

I made 'cheezy sauce' from a recipe from the back of the nutrirional yeast (or savoury yeast flakes as it is called here in aus) packet. While the colour was off the texture was very good, like melted cheese and it was quite yummy.

I decided to make two different styles of toppings on one since the base was so large. The left was my side, the slightly healthier side consisted of: cannellini beans and broccolini precooked with garlic inspired from something in vegan planet. On the right side, Mr T chose to cover it with tomatos, olives, mushrooms, corn, and capsicum.

before the cheezy sauce

after the cheezy sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds and different herbs

It was served with sun dired tomato garlic bread, which beats regular garlic bread any day. It was yummy and very filling. however next time I won't cover it so much with the sauce, it takes away from the toppings a little bit too much for my liking and I'll make mini ones instead and expirement more with different toppings.

We had a fair bit of cheezy sauce sauce left over so we made some toasted sandwiches for work the next day, mine consisted of sauce and corn/ sauce and tomatos. Mr T's were a little more colourful since he loooves olives and I can't stand them:

Changing template again?

Yes there always seems to be on problem with each.

Someone emailed me about the last one asking why I deleted the ability to leave comments, which of course I didn't. The big 0 at the top of each was where you can add comments. Besides it didn't do much for my ego all those big 0 everywhere.

Anyway don't get to adjusted to this one, I'm sure it won't be staying long.

Can my stomach be causing my throat to hurt

As it turns out yes.

Today a doctor realised that my cause of extremely painful throat was in fact caused by my stomach, well my relux.

The last couple of days I have been having obvious stomach problems and have had the sore throat for two weeks, I had no idea they were related.

Last night it got so painful that Mr T was threatening to take me to ER, i couldn't talk without feeling like i would pass out from the pain.

It called Reflux Laryngitis, which according to voiceproblem.org is a:

voice disorder that results from irritation and swelling of parts of the voice box due to the backflow of stomach fluids into the voice box area. This backflow is called laryngopharyngeal reflux.

According to medicinenet:

stomach acid can cause an irritation of the lining of the esophagus, larynx and throat. This can lead to erosion of the lining of the esophagus (erosive esophagitis), narrowing of the esophagus (stricture), chronic hoarseness, chronic throat clearing, difficulty swallowing, foreign body sensation, asthma or cough, spasms of the vocal cords, sinusitis, and growths on the vocal cords (granulomas)

I'm a little concerned though at whats actually causing the reflux. Before I went vegan I had chronic gastrointestinal problems and was refered to specialist after specialist and hospitalised more than a few times. I eventually saw someone who said I had intolerances, i went on an elimination problem and found that dairy was the main culprit. That of course started me thinking about diet and that of course eventually lead to veganism. That was over a four years ago and I haven't had stomach problems since til now that is.

Now I have no idea what the culprit is.

I have put back on heavy antacid type medicine. This is not something I want to continue long term dependence with.

Anywaym at least I have an answer to my never ending throat problem. I knew that the first doctor was wrong about it being a virus.

Box Hill and Chinese food

Firstly it is wrong that I go from a string of posts about sexism to food?

Mr T and I are pretty multicultural when it comes to food. I like to think its because of me. The aussie in me that is. The other day I said something about baklava and he said to me 'how do you know about all these foods?' 'I'm Australian' I replied. Of course not all aussies agree with me here. Some would prefer to stick to their 3 veg and meat and never step outside their comfort zone, so boring and people say my diet is restrictive!

There is however one thing that he keeps introducing me to food wise, more and more different types of Chinese food. Not the western style versions of Chinese food! For example, here in Australia we have something called a dim sim which is sold in most Chinese restaurants. Its not Chinese. Its Australian, an Australian Chinese man invented them a while ago. See here A sore point with Mr T.

On sat we went to box hill for yum cha at Asian Vegetarian Restaurant (yes original name). Boy how I miss yum cha! It was so great even though they had actually sold out of turnip cake- my fav. If anyone knows where to get vegetarian turnip cake closer to the city please tell me, I have had a craving for it since he introduced me to it back in june/july last year. Anyway, back to yum cha. It was amazing and cooked fresh, a big rarity for yum cha and very cheap. I strongly recommend the BBQ 'pork' buns and their taro dumplings. We then walked around box hill which made both Mr T and I feel like we were both back in HK because of the large Chinese population, even the stares are back when I hold his hand. We then went to a market only to discover all these different Chinese foods we have missed, including: red beans, mushroom fluff (??-Mr T's), a macau brand of almond cookies, and so much more. As we speak he is making red bean soup. Red bean soup is a dessert soup and very yummy although everyone here seems to scared to try it.

We then finished off the day in Box hill with a green bean icee from one of those bubble top places.

On the way back, I said to him maybe we should move to Box Hill, unfortunately he is not so fond of the idea.

Because more people need to read it

From Christy link at nopod I found what flee wrote.

Be brave and go and read it!

The big questions.

In honor of blog against sexism, Hugo is asking the following questions. While I am home sick from work I thought i would attempt it rather than feel sorry for myself.

1. What are three ways in which I (you) am (are) working to end sexism in your personal life and in the broader world?

2. What are three ways in which I (you) am (are) continuing to "fall short of the mark" in terms of embodying your ideals?

Ok, here are my attempts at answers.

1.1 By remaining conscious of the stereotypes around house work and fighting to remove them within my partnership with Mr T. Yes I do cook more mostly because I enjoy it. But he doesn't expect that I will cook for him and there is always appreciation when I do with a 'thanks for dinner'. I also don't expect that he maintains sterotypical male tasks within and outside the household: eg: fixing things, changing my tires etc. Most of what we do is actually together, if I am cooking he will play chefs assistant and help cut up and prepare everything, if he washes the dishes i dry and we do the grocery shopping together. It makes housework a lot more enjoyable.

1.2 By failing to contribute further to everyday conversations about women's beauty. She is good looking, no she's ugly, I hate that .... In attempts to stop the constant emphasis on female beauty in place of female intelligence, humour, creativity, kindness, humanity.

1.3 I'm really struggling for a third one but here goes: By blogging and reading and linking to some amazing bloggers i'm constantly trying to alert myself and at least a few others to various issues around sexism.

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2.1 I tend to keep my mouth shut more than I think I should. Sometimes because I am tired of arguing and sometimes because I am so pessimistic that I think it's just a waste of time because the type of people I might argue with won't listen anyway. This of course does not help the cause.

2.2 I wish i could do more for sexism particularly on a broader scale, but like many others I don't know how or what within a pretty packed timetable.

2.3 While I refuse adopt some practices that culturally as a woman I am expected to adopt (eg: wear uncomfortable high heels, make up except for special occasions) I feel compelled to do some things which are unnecessary but expected of women ONLY such as shaving my legs, and armpits. Trivial, perhaps but there is really no reason for it, except for conformity.

Now how about your answers?

It's Blog Against Sexism Day and i'm ashamed too say i'm too sick to think of anything worthwhile to write, but I would like to recommend link above to see just a few who have participated.

Btw, i promise to fix my template soon, its driving me crazy!

A busker in Bourke St Mall

Mismatch
Last week was all over the place, highlights and lowlights include:

High
* sitting through a job interview and babbling like an idiot, only to discover that 1. i had a flat battery on a 40 degree day and had to wait one and half hours for help to arrive and 2. that I didn't get the job.
* being an hour late to my first class back at uni.
* getting lost at a uni that i have been attending for 3 years.
* getting confused with my uni work timetable and being a 'no show' to work.
* getting a cold. probably as a result on no kitchen and bad eating habits for two weeks.
* having to endure more wedding bitching from my co workers and JUST managing to refrain myself from shouting 'get a life' to them.

Low
*A successful meetup with fellow blogger Ann at St Jeromes. I was a little worried that perhaps we would have nothing to talk about or would be akward but thankfully neither was a problem. Both Ann and St Jeromes were very cool.
* Getting a job offer from the same organisation who rejected me for a slightly different role only the day before and Mr T also changing to a better department on the same day.
* the kitchen finally being complete

What about you?