| I have not been called to the wisdom of this world |
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| Meh |
[17 Jan 2005|01:28am] |
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I really need to get around to copying my archives...
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| I'm moving! |
[14 Sep 2004|02:08pm] |
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I have decided to officially move to Typepad, so my new address is
http://maltagirl.typepad.com
Come and pay me a visit :-)
This journal will stay open for a while, at least until I copy the posts I want to keep. Yay!
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| No, I will not give you my bank account number. |
[27 Aug 2004|07:59pm] |
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I got another Nigerian scam in my inbox today, another one targeting born-again Christians. *sigh*.
In it, Mrs Caroline Solange Haafkens claims to be the widow of a Dutch man who supposedly worked in the Canadian Embassy in Nigeria... oh yeah and she's childless and in hospital with terminal lung cancer and a few months left to live (but hang on, folks, it's not all bad: she's got a laptop!).
Mrs Haafkens, bless her heart, wants her $4.6 million fortune to go to widows and orphans etc etc and needs my help to do it.
*puts on superman cape*
I wonder how many people will be dumb enough to reply to her, placated by the religious tone of the email?
*takes off cape*
Here it is below, all spelling and grammatical mistakes left unchanged for your amusement. Oh yeah, feel free to spam that email address - after all, she/he/they spammed me...
From: Mrs Caroline Solange Haafkens of Nederlanden
I am the above named person from Nederlanden. I am married to Dr.Franklyn Haafkens who worked with canada Embassy in nigeria for nine years before he died in the year 2000.We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.
Before his death we were both born again christians.
When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (Four Million six hundred thousand U.S.Dollars)with a bank called commercial bank of africa.
Presently, this money is still with the bank and the management just wrote me as the beneficiary to come forward to receive the money or rather issue a letter of authorisation to somebody to receive it on my behalf if I can not come over.
Presently, I'm with my laptop in a hospital where I have been undergoing treatment for cancer of the lungs. I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only a few months to live.
It is my last wish to see this money distributed to charity organizations.Because relatives and friends have plundered so much of my wealth since my illness, I cannot live with the agony of entrusting this huge responsibility to any of them. Please,I beg you in the name of God to help me collect the deposit and the interest accrued from the bank and distribute it accordingly.
I want a person that is God fearing that will use this money to fund churches,orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that Blessed is the hand that giveth.I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money.
My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life. Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for another person for this same purpose.
Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.
Hoping to hearing from you soon.
waiting for your reply
Mrscaroline04@netscape.net
Yours in Christ,
Mrs Caroline Solange Haafkens
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| Yet another person gets sick :-( |
[27 Aug 2004|06:25pm] |
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OK, life officially sucks.
I hate it when things like this happen...
I just received an email saying that one of my friends in America was on the way to hospital in an ambulance, because she woke up with problems in moving her arms and legs.
She was just here in Malta last week, and this so sucks.
First one friend had a stroke, then another one was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, then another one almost died in a motorcycle accident, and now this. All in the space of two months. And all of them Christians, wonderful people, all married with kids and (except for the bike rider) grandkids.
I guess this is why God has been surrounding me with people asking me "why does God let bad things happen?"... He knew I would be asking the same question myself...
(for an answer, read the book of Job)
I guess I'm at a place where I understand the point (which is that God is God, and we can't understand the point!) but I'm glad that it's OK for me to be angry and sad - God meets me there.
Still sucks, though. Hope she's OK.
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| BUSTED!!! Or, Piglet can be hazardous to your health. |
[26 Aug 2004|06:15pm] |
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Yesterday I was busted for the first time... the are some people in Real Life (tm) who know about (and occasionaly read) my blog: Michael, Cory, Little Sis, Cousin Jeni... but as far as I know, this is the first time that someone who knows me has found my blog and linked it with me... ack!
Here's what happened: a couple of weeks ago, Mike and I went to the DramaFest at St. James Cavalier, and watched three plays, one of which was "AnoCato". I wrote about the plays, and mentioned that one of the secretaries at work had written this one (which was why we went to see it). Well apparently the writing of the play was actually a collaboration between her and one of the actors... who found my little review and was offended that I didn't mention her as a co-writer...
SO she sent an email quoting my blog to the secretary, who then went to check it out... she read some of the blog, but didn't realise that it was me, and was about to exit the browser... when the word "Piglet" jumped off the page...
It was the entry about when I took Piglet to work (and a photo op in the office) and wouldncha know it but she was the one who helped me do it, so she knew all about Piglet...
BUSTED!!!
So anyway when I went to work yesterday, she asked me to amend my review of the play to say that there were two writers, which I did, BUT she also took great delight in finding all the posts that I have written about work... and reading them out loud in the office to the other secretary... and anyone else who enters the room (read: the engineer who is my immediate boss, who is now asking for the site's address)
*SIGH*
I was considering going back and hiding all the work-related posts... but then again they've already read them... but then again who ELSE is she going to read them to... and then again... so what? It's not like I'm going to lose my job like this guy did...
When I told Little Sis about this, she laughed and said, hah, now you know why my friends and I all make our journals private...
Oh well, I suppose this is an occupational hazard, or should I say blogupational hazard? Lol.
If there's anyone else out there who knows me in Real Life (tm) and has found my blog without me telling you, and twigged it was me... let me know so I can laugh about it too (and incidentally apologise for any incriminating posts)...
*shakes head and contemplates reverting back to long-hand journaling*
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| Migrating |
[26 Aug 2004|05:32pm] |
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LiveJournal = much suckiness
grrrrrrrrr.
Not so long ago there were some much-vaunted "upgrades" and new staff hired... the only results I have seen is that LJ is down half the time and won't let me update... and when it DOES load, it's in text mode! Hah! Little Sis and her friends seem to have mostly migrated to GreatestJournal, but...
Some weeks ago I decided what I want to buy when I (finally) get paid (two weeks' time!)... a real blog! Yeah! I want blogrolling! I want image hosting! I want... a real blog!
I am currently looking at different hosting options... I already had blogs with Blogger (MaltaGirl Goes To America), and they were OK, but since Blogger was aquired by Google, BloggerPro is no longer offered...
I am leaning towards TypePad - there are three options, all paid. The cheapest option isn't enough for me, and the most expensive is, well, too expensive! But the middle option, TypePad Plus, seems to be ideal. The yearly plan works out to Lm30, which isn't too bad for something so cool, heheheheheh.
I have signed up, I get a 30-day free trial, so we'll see how this goes. I'll post the address here once I get going.
*is excited about having a "real" blog*
Some day (read: when I have enough money to afford it) I'll have my own domain name too... yeah!
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| Athens 2004 |
[13 Aug 2004|08:02pm] |
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I'm watching the Olympic Games opening ceremony...
Impressive, but a monumental waste of money.
First fix your country's poverty blah blah blah, then if you have money to burn... plenty more poor people in the world...
*sigh*
If you see this on August 13th, go check out Google's tribute to the Olympics. :-)
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| 4th-Year course list |
[09 Aug 2004|03:10pm] |
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I just finished making my choices about what subjects to take next year... not that there was a lot of choice to make!
Ack, I just realised that I misunderstood one of the sections - have to go back and choose a different subject... just a minute...
There, that wasn't so long, was it? ;-)
OK, here's what I will be studying, assuming I don't get kicked out before then (heheheh)...
Semester 1:
- Power Generation Plants
- Advanced Heat Transfer
- Fluid Mechanics IV
- Vibrations Analysis II
- Finite Element Analysis
- Dynamics II
- Mechatronics I
Semester 2:
- Desalination
- Refrigeration & Psychometrics
- Elasticity, Plasticity & Fracture Mechanics
- The Engineer in Society
Semester 1 looks bad... *gulp* The last three subjects in that list are electives, which means I got to choose them, but from a very limited list.
Semester 2 is light on subjects because of the thesis, which will take up a LOT of time and energy. We have to work on it in Semester 1 anyway, but Semester 2 is when most of the work takes place.
Aaagggrrrrrhhhhh... why didn't I take a degree in English instead?
(the answer: I always choose the most difficult route)
*sigh*
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| Motorcyle accident |
[09 Aug 2004|11:45am] |
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Yesterday at church we found out that one of the church members had been in a serious accident a few hours earlier, at 6am.
He was on his way to work, on his motorbike, when he skidded on some oil or diesel in the road as he was going round a roundabout on the Birkirkara bypass.
He sustained three separate injuries, was operated on, and now is in stable condition in Intensive Care...
There was another motorbike accident the day before, in which the driver died, so this morning when I saw headlines "Motorcyclist dies in accident" my heart was in my mouth until I realised that it was the other guy.
Our guy is married with an almost-one-year-old baby, and we are all praying hard for him...
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| Favouritism |
[08 Aug 2004|08:52am] |
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Yesterday morning (Saturday), I realised that I needed the camera for yesterday evening and for tonight, so I began looking for it to upload the photos on it and clear the memory card.
The day before, I had taken it to the office and taken some pictures of Piglet :D BUT now i couldn't find the camera!
I spent almost an hour searching the whole house and worrying that I had done something stupid like leave it on the bus. It would have taken most of my paycheck to replace that camera.
Eventually I figured that I was going to have to come clean. I walked into Dad's study, and THERE IT WAS! He had taken it to charge its batteries. Hah.
A little later I found out why: Middle Sis had come home on Friday, while I was home, and wanted to take the camera from Saturday to Tuesday to take "a couple of photos" of her friend who was leaving Malta. I was not happy about this because of my participation in wordPhoto.org. Mum said I could use Dad's camera to take my pictures, but Dad is an absolute pain when it comes to borrowing his camera so I wasn't happy with that.
Middle Sis said it was OK, that she would get photos from the other girls with cameras.
So that was OK.
But then at some point later on Friday, my darling mother made an executive decision: she decided that my participation in wordPhoto "wasn't important", that I could borrow Dad's camera and that our camera should go to Middle Sis.
Our camera, the one that belongs to US, not to her. But she doesn't care about that, she just wants to make Middle Sis happy. As usual, she prioritises Middle Sis over us.
So Mum didn't contact me or anything, (I was out), she just called Middle Sis and decided that she was taking the camera to her tonight (Sunday night).
In the meantime, as mentioned above, I realised that I needed the camera for Sunday night so when I found all this out yesterday I was mad, for two reasons: (1) I wanted the camera, and (2) I found it entirely unfair that my mother made this decision ("your project isn't important") without consulting me, over a camera that is ours, and that she has no right to make decisions about, let alone take.
As usual she got angry over the fact that I was angry, a shouting match ensued, and then my father joined against me too. Of course.
Grrrrrrr.
He made me call Middle Sis and the result is that I can use the camera tonight, but tomorrow morning I have to get the bus into Sliema to give Middle Sis the camera.
Because heaven forbid that she should not have anything that she wants.
Sometimes my mother's favouritism makes me sick.
Oh well.
Rant ends here.
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| DramaFest - weirdness galore |
[07 Aug 2004|11:24am] |
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Last night, Mike and I went to one of the DramaFest 2004 sessions at St. James Cavalier. There are 9 plays in all, and you pay Lm2 to watch a session of two or three plays.
We went to the 9:30pm session, a block of three plays, because one of the secretaries at work wrote one of these plays :-)
Anyway, some of it was funny and a lot of it was downright weird, but I guess that's art for you.
The first play, "The Broken Plate" performed by the group "Aleatea", was about a King, his Queen, an Oracle-type character, and their butler. It was about death and dying, and there was a LOT of dust sprinkled and flung around the stage. There was a lot of gymnastics going on (some exceedingly weird positions) and this play included my favourite lines of the evening: the king and queen are in their death throes, and the butler asks the oracle if she would like to live by drinking some water, or die by inhaling more dust.
She responds: Choices? Damn! Well it would be a shame to have so much of this toxic substance and let it go to waste... and since my friends are having such fun dying *looks at king and queen writhing* I think I'll join them. *knocks sunglasses onto face and buries face in dust*
Lol...
The second play, "AnoCato" (means up and down in Greek) and performed by "StageBreeze" was written by my friend. Had some cool dance sequences and, like the other plays, was the kind of thing you only understand (if at all!) at the very end. Basically it was about a female demon/servant of evil, and a male angel/servant of good, and they both go after people to win them over to their side.
This one was the most entertaining, with a brilliant performance by the actress playing the demon :-) and a lot of humour (some of it unfortunately dirty) written in. One of the characters was Maltese-speaking but switched to broken English when he thought that the servant-of-good was an english-language student - it was hilarious! Not as much gymnastics as the first play :-)
Then the third play, "Pollen" performed by "Du'", was probably the weirdest one - it didn't have a plot or storyline as such, but a series of short scenes. It was about two sisters, who are constantly trying to get the upper hand over each other and seem extremely passive-aggressive. Some strange stuff going on too... one thing that stuck out was that one of the scenes was pre-recorded and then projected onto the floor of the stage for us to view. I thought that was really cool. It works really well for that setting - a theatre-in-the-round that was installed inside an old water cistern - because everyone can see the floor. In a normal theatre, they would have had to project onto a vertical screen on the stage and it wouldn't have been so dramatic.
Anyway, Mike and I had plenty to talk about afterwards but we gave up trying to understand it all! It was fun though.
Update: I was informed this morning that the writing of "AnoCato" was in fact a collaboration between two people - the abovementioned secretary and the person who played the part of the demon in the play. I was asked to amend this post accordingly - consider it amended.
25/8/04
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| Tisjir Ma' Wonderful Wednesdays With Jesus |
[05 Aug 2004|02:35pm] |
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Yesterday went well :-)
The kids were very intrigued when I brought out all the containers and they enjoyed mixing it all together.
 I explain that we're on a TV cooking show called "Tisjir ma' (cooking with) Wonderful Wednesdays With Jesus", and that since our video camera is broken, Michael (our Tisjir Ma' WWWJ cameraman) is taking photos instead.
 The finished product - yum yum! The Rice Crispies and Coco pops went all soggy, but that's OK. Chocolate overdose, anyone?
Out of 5 kids, one didn't have any (she doesn't eat anything with sugar in it), one thought it was gross and didn't eat more than one bite, one loved it and had seconds, and another two weren't really sure but ate theirs anyway.
Me, I thought it was great!
Any I'm sure they will remember this for a long time :-)
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| Chocolate pudding beatitudes |
[04 Aug 2004|05:44pm] |
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Tonight's lesson is from Matthew 5:1-12 (the beatitudes) and the Leader's Guide suggested presenting the lesson in the form of a cooking show, having shapes cut out to represent each beatitude. Then you add them to a bowl as though you were following a recipe and finish off with a larger shape or a pre-made cake.
I am going to go one better and actually cook/make something edible :-)
All the "no-bake" recipes for cookies and whatnot that I found, still required the use of a cooker for melting things together, so I decided to go for ready-made chocolate pudding and just add bits and pieces. I looked at various recipes for ideas for things to add to the pudding (I need 8 ingredients, one for each beatitude), and this is my final list: - 6 tubs of chocolate pudding
- mini m&m's
- rice crispies
- coco pops
- vanilla extract
- mini marshmallows (i.e. big ones chopped up)
- crushed morning coffee biscuits
- chopped banana
Definitely more expensive than cut-up cardboard *sigh* but infinitely more fun :-) It's not like I buy things for TeamKid very often.
Oh yeah, the kids decided that they wanted it to be called "Wonderful Wednesdays With Jesus" (the oooold name) instead of TeamKid, which is the name of the curriculum. I think they have a point so I agreed :-)
Anyway, off to watch Everwood and then go buy the ingredients.
*grin*
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| wordPhoto.org |
[03 Aug 2004|07:16pm] |
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Yesterday I found wordPhoto.org via atypicalfemale.com.
The idea is that there is a new word every day, and you post a photo that you have taken, that is related to that word. This month (August) has a twist - the "word" of the day will be a letter and you post something that looks like that letter.
Some of the photos on that site are stunning!
I took the camera to work today and took all kinds of pictures on my way home, looking out for letters and numbers. For today's letter "C", I posted a picture of a curved double-yellow-line at work, and a ftira with a slice cut out of it.
I bought the ftira specially for the photo... then I ate two slices for lunch and froze the rest... edible art, heheheheh.
Funfunfun...
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| *wants to scream* |
[03 Aug 2004|06:04pm] |
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This summer I get ONE WHOLE WEEK off work, in between two sets of four weeks each, and that week is next week. I have been looking forward to that week for ages, because I get to live in Ghadira since I don't have to be at work in the mornings.
However I found out today that my uncle and his family, instead of staying the "week to ten days" that they originally said, will be staying longer, until Tuesday of next week.
My week off.
The week where I intended to spend all my time in Ghadira.
Where they are living while they're here.
So they will be there till Tuesday, then Mum will be cleaning up for the following two days at least, and I have to be back up here by Saturday afternoon.
So my long-awaited week off is basically messed up.
Gee, thanks guys.
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| Late for work |
[02 Aug 2004|11:16pm] |
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Internet problems again today... grrrr...
Plus livejournal has been very sucky in the last few days.
This morning I missed the bus (by about 2 minutes). In consequence I was 40 minutes late for work... and right when I was walking in, who should be driving out but The Boss.
So he knew I was late, and when he got in later he scolded me... *sigh*
As usual, other people get away with murder (like not coming to work at all but signing the attendance roster for that day anyway) but I get jumped on for something comparatively small.
Life is so unfair sometimes... :-(
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| An indoors BBQ and the twisting of a perfectly good plot. |
[01 Aug 2004|09:02pm] |
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Friday's BBQ ended up being indoors due to concern about wind etc.; that is to say, we sat indoors but I think the chicken was still barbequed :-) It was good!
Yesterday Mike and I went to watch "Around the World in 80 days".
I like Jules Verne, and I read that book about 2 months ago - so I can say that it was SO not the original plot! The whole way through I was going "that's not in the book", "that's not in the book", and then they left out some of the best bits! (like the storm while sailing to Japan).
The whole "jade buddha" thing was a complete fabrication, nothing but an excuse for Jackie Chan to show off his martial arts skills. So was the "build the very first aeroplane and fly to London" thing - what really happened was that Phileas Fogg bought the ship from the captain and had the crew chop up the upper part and use it to feed the fires when the coal ran out.
Plus their portrayal of Phileas Fogg wasn't very faithful (and let me not say anything about their pathetic attempt to pass off Jackie Chan as Passepartout).
Ggrrrrr...
The sad thing is that the original story is really cool and would have made a good film in its own right, but no, we have to have the martial arts, and the love interest, and a main character who smiles...
*sigh*
If you want to read Jules Verne's story, (i.e. NOT the Disney version!), it's right here, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
If you're interesting in helping to make (copyright-expired) books available on the Internet for free, by volunteering as a proofreader, check out the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders website. It's fun and cool :-)
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