AROUND THE PENINSULA

The opening of the new Clonmany School

Judi and Philip wedding at Inch Chapel

Jaqueline and Joseph wedding at Cockhill Church

Moville Formal

WISDOM OF THE WORLD - WEEK 71

Thanks to the Gaelscoil in Buncrana for the image...

Freedom Parrot


A man, a great man, a fighter for freedom was travelling in the mountains. He stayed a night at an inn at the foot of the mountains and was amazed that there was a beautiful parrot in a golden cage, continually repeating the words "Freedom! Freedom!"

The man thought: "I have seen many parrots, and have thought they must want to be free from those cages... but I have never seen such a parrot whose whole day is spent in calling out for freedom." He had an idea. In the middle of the night, when the owner was fast asleep, he got up and opened the door of the cage. He whispered to the parrot, "Fly away."

But he was very surprised that the parrot was clinging to the bars of the cage. He said to him again and again, "Have you forgotten about freedom? Just get out! The door is open and the owner is fast asleep; nobody will ever know. You just fly into the sky; the whole sky is yours."

But the parrot was clinging so deeply, so hard, that the man said, "What is the matter? Are you mad?" He tried to take the parrot out with his own hands, but the parrot started pecking at him, and at the same time he was shouting "Freedom! Freedom!" The valleys in the night echoed and re-echoed, but the man was also stubborn. He was a freedom fighter.

He pulled the parrot out and threw him into the sky; and he was very satisfied, although his hand was hurt. The parrot had attacked him as forcefully as he could, but the man was immensely satisfied that he had made a soul free. He went to sleep.

In the morning, as the man was waking up, he heart the parrot shouting, "Freedom! Freedom!" He thought perhaps the parrot must be sitting on a tree or on a rock. But when he came out, the parrot was sitting in the cage. The door was open.

Osho

The right vitamins for you!

Before this, i never really bother about this till yesterday when i was at The Mall for lunch and i entered a pharmacy since they've got sale on some vitamins and supplements. While I was talking to the pharmacist about some vitamins she gave me a free scan where they scan your fingernail and from there they'll know what kinda supplements or vitamins you're lacking of.

As for me, i need to take more Selenium for anti-oksidant and calcium since i'm lacking of these two.

So, starting from next month, I'll make the effort to spend some on food supplements and vitamins cos it's very important especially nowadays when life evolves with facing the laptop, TV, college, work and there's no time to actually take care of ourselves. So, at least with the aid of vitamins and food supplements will keep you maintain a good health.

Of course, balanced- diet also play an important role in order to get the right amount of vitamin and supplement needed for the body.

AROUND THE PENINSULA

Barbeque at George O'Hagan's shed in Linsfort

iCare open day in Buncrana

Inishowen Partnership Business Awards at Tullyarvan Mill

Shroove 50 year school anniversary in Greencastle

Sinead Grant and Sean lynch wedding at Cockhill church in Buncrana

Charity swim from Rathmullen the Buncrana in aid of the Foyle Down Syndrome Trust

WISDOM OF THE WORLD - WEEK 70

The Wisdom Under the Ring

A king asked his advisors for a small advice that contains all wisdom to keep under the diamond of his ring. He wanted to keep it with him and use it only as a last resort – when he really needed it. The advisors worked hard but couldn’t think of a sentence, which would contain all wisdom. They went to a wise man who lived in the mountains who immediately wrote down the advice and fixed it to the ring saying “Tell the king he is not to read it out of curiosity but only when he is in such despair he feels that there is no way out.”

The king was curious but remembered his promise and did not look. Not long afterwards the king’s country was invaded and he lost the battle. He was running alone on his horse to save his life in the mountains and he reached a point, which was a dead end. Below was a sheer drop and he could hear the hoofs and the sound of the enemy coming closer. Suddenly he remembered the ring and opened it and read the following message “This too will pass.” A great silence descended over him as he realised, everything passes. He waited and strange as it seems the horses started receding. They had started to follow another path. The king returned, collected his armies together, fought the enemies and took back his kingdom. There was a great day of celebration and the king was feeling very pleased and self satisfied with himself. He had defeated a great enemy with larger armies and a bigger kingdom. Suddenly he remembered, “This too will pass.” With this remembrance his ego disappeared and he became very humble.

Batu Caves

BATU CAVES

Hmmm…before I talk about Batu Caves, let me just explain something about my bf. This guy has this funny thing (I don’t know how should I say but it’s kinda weird and funny...in a cute way though) or tendency that whenever I asked him to bring me out or ‘LET’S GO OUT?!’. He’ll bring me to weird places…more like tourists attraction places like the Zoo, Bird Park (not yet but I’m guessing coming soon since he talks about it a lot), Batu Caves, Genting Highland and so on…

Coz usually (I bet this goes the same to everyone) when we said ‘LET’S GO OUT!’ it just simply means a day out at the mall for lunch or movie just hanging out and stuffs, not much of an extravaganza event or something!
The 1st time I asked him to bring me out, he brought me to the ZOO!!! So, there I was with him and his friends hanging out at the zoo watching all the animals which was kinda cool actually since my 20 years of living here in Malaysia, I never even stepped into our own national zoo! And on the 19th July was my 1st time stepping into the zoo and actually see how it was!
Anyways, back to the main point, so last weekend since we haven’t been out for quite sometimes, I asked him to go hang out!

By starting with a simple question,

Me : Let’s go out?!?!
Him : Where do you wanna go?
Me : I dunno, anywhere lah… I just wanna get out of the house for awhile, go somewhere and chill.
Him : (Excited) Let’s go to Batu Caves!
Me : Alright then (reluctantly)

Lol! So, we went to Batu Caves! It didn’t start well coz it was raining heavily and while waiting for the rain to stop, we took our lunch and just chilled at the mall near his place.

We just got there...

While at Batu Caves, we just walked around sightseeing and walked up the 200++ stairs!!! Gosh it was tiring, really! It turns out to be ok actually (if not coz of the headache I had coz of the rain earlier) we just went from one temple to another temple and at one point, the priest gave us the red patch (I think it's called Kum Kum) on our foreheads! The guys took some pictures with the snakes which later that night gave me nightmares (snakes everywhere and I couldn’t escape)! I never liked snakes!

While the guys were busy with the picture taking with the snakes, I was just walking around in the temple and an Indian girl maybe around 2 or 3 years of age went to me and started clinging on me even when her daddy wanted to take her home, she just started hugging me and asked me to carry her! Lol! She’s so cute!

Towards the end of the trip, we went to the souvenir shop. I didn’t plan to get anything though since I didn’t have any cash with me but then my bf bought me this really nice, tribal, vintage looking necklace! It’s sooo my taste!!! Really beautiful! After they’ve done buying everything, then we realized, we had no money to get a cab to go home… but then, we still made it home though…Lol!

Sometimes some girls are just TOO much!

Even though most time I’ll be writing about how unfair the world or the society towards the women but sometimes, I don’t blame the guys for doing so actually, when I said that, I meant when they just used girls for sex or talked about certain girls or just dumped her after one night stand! I know it’s weird and mean but some girls just deserve to be treated that way!

The reason I’m saying this is that, I’ve seen and known two girls (Girl A & Girl B) maybe about few months ago. At 1st glance meeting them, they looked really sweet and nice. Never that it even crossed my mind or I even thought that they are that kinda ‘girl’ (let me just tell the whole story 1st).
One day, after few weeks meeting girl A, we started hanging out and just have fun like having girl’s night out and movies. That time, I still didn’t notice anything bad about her or anything. But till one day, when she asked me if I wanna hang out with her to the mall and watch movie. The story continues when after that we went to my bf’s place (that time he was not my bf yet) to chill coz they were having dinner and he invited us over. And since it was late, so we decided to stay there for the night. And while we were there, girl A started flirting with one of the guy (Mr. O) there (my bf’s housemate which is also my friend) and it disturbed me coz she has a bf and I know she’s not serious about it and the fact that the guy she’s flirting with is my friend..(a very good friend actually) but I just ignored it thinking that maybe my friend (Mr. O) would understand that she’s just flirting and don’t take it seriously too coz he knew that she has a bf. But it started to go out of control, Mr. O started to have feelings for her and even willing to be her 2nd bf. Maybe coz of that, she started using the guy, like asking money from him, used their place like a hotel. Whenever she went out to meet her bf, and if it’s too late and she can’t go back to her hostel coz of the curfew, she’ll go back to Mr. O’s place (which is also my bf’s plc!) and these kinda things.
Till one time, when we were out to see my bf’s band performed, she was flirting with the other guy (the guitarist of the band) in front of Mr. O.
I realized that, and even though Girl A is my friend but Mr. O is also my friend, and what Girl A is doing is seriously unacceptable. So I went to talk to Mr. O and told him to ‘pull it out of the girl’, just forget about her and ignore her! Well, for his own sake, he listened to what I said! And since then, Mr. O ignores Girl A but Girl A keeps calling him and at one point, when she can’t get through Mr. O, she went to the guitarist place. Since then, the guys started to talk about her and believes me, if any guy would say those things about me, I seriously don’t even know where to put my face anymore! Probably I’ll dig a hole and bury myself alive coz of shame!

One thing I don’t understand is that, of all those things she has done, she still has the guts to call Mr. O at 5 in the morning to ask if she can come over to their place! And also, all the while she’s been worrying if her bf would cheat on her with other girls. That’s when my bf actually said something offensive to her like (which I totally agree with), ‘If you’re scared about your bf cheating on you, then what are you doing flirting around with other guys and spending nights at their place?’

Well, that’s something about Girl A. Now, it’s about Girl B.

With Girl B it’s a bit different, she doesn’t really flirt around even when the fact that she actually has 2 BFs (used to be 4 before). Anyways, she’s not the kinda girl who goes around to guys’ house and asking money or flirt around but she’s the type who likes to take advantages over other people’s kindness especially the guys! I used to bring her with me whenever I’m out with my friends before and I don’t mind actually but what I hate the most about her is that, she just loves taking advantages! If she knows my friends would be paying for lunch or dinner, she’ll order the most expensive meal she can find in the menu! Or start ordering a lot of things till in the end, she herself might not be able to finish ‘em!
That’s the 1st thing; the second thing is that, she has a bad tendency or habit of stealing. She tends to steal something she might like or need! I don’t get it! Some people, they don’t seem to have brain to think! It’s like parasite! You’re stealing from the person or the people who has done some good deed for you! How could they do that?!?! At one point, I kinda ignored that bad habit of hers, but it got worse! I caught her red handed stealing my bikini (and some other things) and my bf’s necklace and a very expensive Zippo lighter!
Starting from that moment, I never want to bring her with me anymore, even if I feel sorry that she has to be alone over the weekend but I couldn’t bear bringing a thief with me to hang out with my friends! God knows what else she would steal! And I’ll be blame for it!
Please take note that I’m not here to judge anyone nor I want to gossip coz I know I, myself is not perfect either but I’m just here to remind certain girls that DO NOT act this way coz some of you might think that the guys are stupid but seriously, they’re smart! And certain guys actually know what type of girls they are from their looks and the way the girls carry themselves! Probably that’s why; don’t be surprised if certain guys never take any girls seriously! It’s probably because of these kinda situations!

Banana Cream Pie

Banana cream pie has a certain lore to it doesn't it? It makes me think of 24 hour diners or grandmas. Do grandmas make banana cream pies? Who MAKES banana cream pies?? When I used to play music in bands, I remember touring and visiting a place called House of Pies in Houston, Texas. They had every conceivable pie and it was beautiful to look at. They also had 24 hour steaks, burgers, breakfast, etc...

This is the second year in a row I've made a banana cream pie for my good pal Josh on his birthday. He loves pies. I love how people love certain things. I guess I would be construed as loving pizza, and ice cream. I'd like to get better at making pies. It's a personal goal of mine!

So let me tell you about this pie. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, but instead of a traditional crust I made a graham cracker crust. I loooove graham cracker. I love S'mores so much. I love them so much some friends call me S'mung (my last name is Sung). The pie was very easy to make, just took some patience and some attention. I love how the cream custard filling thickens SO SUDDENLY! It's so cool. As soon as those bubbles start in the middle and suddenly you're stirring The Blob.

WINDOWS OF HOPE

Windows of Hope stained glass window unveiling at scoil Iosagain in Buncrana

Left to right: Paul Fleming the mayor of Derry, Jeanette Ward, Community worker, Lee Tedstone the Buncrana Mayor, Bernie and Patricia who unveiled the window, Paddy McGowan the chair of Omagh District Council and Joe Coyle from Alpha Studios who made the work of art.

Amityville Horror!

My day started when i woke up at 7 this morning just so that i can go to college and print my assignment papers that took less than 2 minutes! GOD!!!! And the whole day spoiled cos i was feeling dizzy and kinda headache cos of the early wake up. Then, around 2 i took a nap, and honestly it was sooooooo NICE!!!!!!!! Even though it's hot outside but my room was so cold! i even used my blanket when i slept! I forced myself to wake up after that cos i need to go pee! =( was trying to get back tpo sleep but i cant, so me and my roommate who happen to also just woke up, went downstairs to get some 'pisang goreng' (banana fritters) for our tea-time while watching Amityville Horror! i was too into the movie that i dint realised that i was late for my 7pm lecture, so i skipped it... *sigh*

It was ok, but i kinda doubt whether it is actually based on a true story cos it looks too perfect for a real story!

BUNCRANA BARBEQUE BONANZA

AROUND THE PENINSULA

Newtown Sports

Mayor of Buncrana Lee Tedstone welcome visitors from the north

Illies sports day