my ajumma notes

Today, which many people all over the world and also in Singapore will celebrate as 'Valentine's Day', is the feast day of St Valentine. He was a priest and martyr, executed on Feb 14. Here , we are told that he is the patron saint of 'affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers (and) young people'. I suppose this day has become what it is partly because of some of the things on that list. Now, if people over the years had chosen to focus on the 'bee keepers' or 'fainting' parts instead, I wonder what we today would be celebrating in a commercialised way! Anyhow, I have found this translation of a Goethe love poem which is quoted in Wedding . In this translation, the poem is rather unromantically entitled 'Proximity of the Beloved One' . I think of thee, whene'er the sun his beams o'er ocean flings; I think of thee, whene'er the moonlight gleam...

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan...

Recently I met this lady who kindly thought I was much younger than I actually am – bless her heart, as they say! She told me about her ‘swinging bachelor’ son and asked me if I was attached. Ha ha… I guess I should take that as a compliment. Well, it did set me thinking about blind dates. I think it’s an age thing. I probably would have baulked at the idea of a blind date when I was in my 20s. However, at my current age, if I weren’t married, I think my answer to the question would be, ‘You bet I would!’ Ha ha, sounds like I’m so desperate. The thing is, since one’s chances of meeting someone get slimmer with each passing year, as long as the blind date is arranged by someone trustworthy, who won’t set you up with lechers, dangerous criminals and the like, I guess one might just give it a go. As everyone knows, ‘meeting someone’ is a national problem and now with the SDU closed down (I forgot why), perhaps more entrepreneurial types might want to jump at the chance to fill in the gap....