Searching for Utopia

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

One of a few things we can hardly find in Singapore is cheap healthcare, especially if you’re foreigners.

For us, going to a general hospital may still be almost as expensive as a private one. First time consultation with a specialist will typically cost around $90 or more. On top of that, we still have to pay for the medication. Often they’re more expensive than the physicians.

Thus it’d be a great help if we had something similar to Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens.

What is it, we hear you asked.

For $10 a year, you and your family can signup to a club that will provide discount prices on your prescriptions. It covers everyone in your immediate family, including a spouse, dependents 22 and younger and pets. Individuals may also join for $5.

It’s absolutely risk free. If you don’t save more than the cost of your membership during the course of the year of your membership, then they’ll refund the difference.

Other benefits include:

�  Savings on more than 8,000 brand-name and all generic medications

�  Discounts on flu shots, pet prescriptions, nebulizers and diabetic supplies

�  Bonuses when you purchase Walgreens and Nice! brand products and photofinishing services.

This program is not insurance, but for such a low cost, it will help to minimize your expenses, in case you or a family member fell sick. It’s especially true when you’re uninsured, your insurance doesn’t cover all of your medications, or your insurance co-pays are too high.

Too bad, unless you’re living in the USA, you can’t signup. But you can still follow Walgreens on Twitter or liking Walgreens on Facebook, just like I’ve done.

Who knows, with enough support they’ll one day be made available for us in Singapore.

Happy (belated) new year. My apologies for the dearth of posts over the last year month.

There has been much going on.

We shifted to our new home in the beginning of December, and still busy with packing-unpacking since then until recently.

Hopefully now that everything is settled, I can begin to blog again like I used to.

I know I’ve been saying the same old promises over and over again, but this time it’s for real–I hope.

Meanwhile, if you had time to spare, why not pop in to our new online shop, Ayu-me ?

That is, if you’re into high street fashion.

You’ll find crazy great deals on womenswear. We’ve hand-picked our collections from many worldwide suppliers to bring you quality products and efficient service that you might not be able to find in Singaporean high street stores.

You’ll need to check our collections if you’re into popular brands, vintage fashion or even designer-inspired pieces.

Many of us consider living in Singapore is boring, because of its tiny size.

I don’t necessarily agree. Even after five years, there are still places that I’ve never been to—but that’s another story.

People generally spend their holidays overseas.

Countries like Switzerland, Australia and Korea are a few popular destinations among others, mainly because they offer different experience of nature.

Now, if you keep going to those same old places, you’ll soon find them as boring as Singapore. How about trying something new, like spending your holidays in Costa Rica?

Although considered small, it’s still much larger than Singapore, with 51,100 sq km. Meaning it’s packed with fun and exciting things to discover; unless if you’re thinking about shopping spree and theme parks. But then you wouldn’t go out of Singapore at all, would you?

We may know very little about Costa Rica, but it seems to have all that we lack in Singapore: abundant wildlife, wonderful scenery, impressive volcanoes, rich rainforest, rocky coves and all.

Imagine yourself walking along the country roads that wind through sleepy villages whose farming families grow coffee, fruits or flowers.

Only within that one sentence we can find several things we never see in Singapore:
- Sleepy villages; we don’t have any villages—let alone the sleepy ones. We are awake 24 hours.
- Farming families; nobody is crazy enough to grow farm on HDB courtyard areas.

Other than that, if you enjoyed visiting Switzerland, then you might love Costa Rica too, for it’s often called as its Latin American version.

It’s peaceful and well organised. The populace report the highest life satisfaction in the world, have the second-highest average life expectancy of the Americas (second only to Canada). From there we can see that health standards must be quite high.

Better still, English is widely spoken, so you won’t have to struggle with German or French.

I have to admit though, that the most surprising fact for me is that Costa Rica has no army.

A country has to be either very safe or unsafe to choose not to have one. I take it that Costa Rica is the first, since it is a peaceful place.

If you’re interested in visiting the country but don’t know how, you may want to contact Geodyssey for assistance on geodyssey.co.uk.

They plan trips to Costa Rica every day, and they can tailor the package to suit your budget and needs; whether you are school teachers or doctors, cabinet ministers or business people, retirees or honeymooners.

When you’re all done, don’t forget to tell me about your adventures there.

It’s the book I’d been waiting to read for years. In fact, I have never wanted any book the way I did this one–not even the ever popular LOTR.

So, I started to read with an expectation that I would like it–understandably, I hope. Dragons of the Hourglass Mage tells about Rastlin, Raistlin and more Raistlin.

And what a surprise, I truly do love it.

Basically this book picks up right where the first part of Dragons of Spring Dawning left off.

Red robed wizard Raistlin leaves the companions to die in the maelstrom, as we know from the Spring Dawning.

I know I always said he’s my favorite character. Nevertheless it broke my heart to see him do that. Worse still when he switched his robe to black.

Although, as everyone believes, the force of light could never win the war if he didn’t do that. Such is the power of Raistlin Majere.

How is that possible, you may ask. We all have vague ideas about it, but Dragons of the Hourglass Mage has the answers.

Raistlin is, no doubt, evil. He is self-serving bastard, as his half sister Kitiara said.

How would you call a mage who changes the color of his robes as if they’re just clothes? Well they’re clothes, of course, but you know what I mean.

But deep in my heart I always knew–or at least hoped, that he’d be redeemed.

He deserves it. While Kitiara is rotten to the core, Raistlin is different. He doesn’t go to battle by destroying cities and kill countless souls.

More than that, he’s not stranger to compassion. While we don’t see much of this in the Chronicles Trilogy, save for his encounter with Bupu, we’ll learn more here.

He pays off his debts. He saves the universe–to what ends? Well, that is another story. He’s wearing black robe still.

Maybe he wouldn’t do all that if he thought serving Takhisis could be more profitable to him.

Then again we will never know. Having been sickly most of his life himself, he never abuses his power to hurt the weak ones.

Read if you dare.

Market America is an online product portal operator and internet marketing company that specializes in One-to-One-Marketing.

Since founded in 1992, it has more than six million customers and generated over $3 billion in accumulated sales of its exciting products, including the ever popular Isotonix—the world’s most advanced nutraceuticals.

Today the Greensboro, NC-based company have international operations in the US, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

The key to its success, apart from the quality products, is no other than its revolutionary One-to-One Marketing concept. Instead of spending gazillion dollars on advertising, Market America would rather spend the money to direct sellers.

They organize events, including trainings and courses to educate entrepreneurs on their products and hence increase sales. Among their most recent events is the nutraMetrix consultant training. It covers why health professionals need wellness programs, what to look for when choosing nutraceuticals, and detailed information on nutraMetrix products and services. Upon completion of the training, the participants will learn how to approach health professionals and help them achieve their business goals while improving the health of their patients.

Just how much you can earn from joining Market America? Of course, as it is with any other business, it depends on your effort. The more hardworking you are, the more profit you would earn. In The Power Profiles, though, you can view people who have joined before you and see how much they earn.

Anyone can have a say on anything. You may heard many things said about Market America, that sometimes it’s very difficult to tell myth from facts. So, make sure you get the right information from the most trusted source: marketamericafacts.com.

It will tell you how to start the business.

You can also check the Market America Blog for the latest info about the company and its wide range selection of popular products.

We’ve heard about parents who let their young child smoke. We read about parents who force their young girl to marry an old man. But such things usually happen in a remote area–with lowly educated parents.

I was shocked when I read about this ‘lollipox’ phenomenon.

Some parents in the US, which I assume at least graduated from High School, voluntarily infect their children with chicken pox using lollipops that had been licked by other children with chicken pox.

Now, with the exception of the hubby and Adam, I hate sharing drinks with others.

It’s gross. You never know what people have eaten before sharing spit with you. Worse still, you don’t know what diseases they can pass on.

To think that some people actually made money from selling infected lollipops — well, okay, some people are that greedy, but to think that some people are stupid enough to buy them and use them on their children:

A CNN affiliate, KPHO, discovered the story when they came across a Facebook page called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” The page, which has now been removed, had 1,000 Facebook Likes postings by parents willing to sell and ship infected chicken pox lollipops across the state. One post read: “Fresh batch of Pox in Nashville Tennessee. Shipping of suckers, spit, and Q-tips available tomorrow. $50 via PayPal.”

They said its’ purpose was “for parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.”

Would they do the same for, say, Hepatitis?

Slutwalk Singapore said that this movement started in Toronto in Feb of 2011 as a response to Constable Michael Sanguinetti’s statement at a York University safety forum that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized.”

As the result, women in many countries thronged the streets in skimpy outfits to protest against sexual violence.

Unlike those women, SlutWalk Singapore organisers urge supporters to “come as they are” - whether in T-shirt and jeans, fishnets, sari, jacket or tudung. And instead of a march through the streets, the Singapore version will be a gathering of demonstrators in support of the cause, say organisers. They are hoping for a turnout of at least 300.

What do you make of it?

Now, it is obvious that in any rape case, victim first of all shouldn’t be the ones to be blamed. Why, it’s the rapist, of course.

However, crime rate in Singapore is one of the lowest in the world. Therefore, rape is a rare occurrence — thank God.

Unlike in some countries, the result of dressing too scantily in Singapore is many stares and a few gawks. Sure, it’s annoying — but it’s not a crime.

Nobody likes to be stared at like a piece of meat, as a supporter called Miss Fei Wong said.

She recalls how she once felt offended by an elderly man as she walked past him in a body-hugging outfit. “That elderly man was staring down at me, as if he was mentally raping me. I asked him in Hokkien: ‘Uncle, what are you looking at?’ Then he looked away.

“When a woman dresses up, she is bound to get some attention, but she is not asking for rape,” says Miss Wong.

“When we were young, our parents would tell us not to dress too sexy or we would get molested or raped,” adds Miss Wong. She feels it is time to challenge the perception that it is acceptable to live in a victim-blaming society, where we are taught “don’t get raped”, instead of “don’t rape”.

Now, I’m not against Slutwalk. It’s the sexual violence that I’m against to. But the movements does seem to be a little out of place here.

While I agree with Miss Wong that men on the street can sometimes stare too much, what can we do about it really? It’s their eyes.

There are many reasons why people stare. You’re too pretty, you’re too sexy, you’re too ugly, you’re different. People haven’t seen anything like you in a while.

Who could prove what the elderly man was thinking while gawking at her? Talking about rights, it’s his right to stare as much as it’s hers to wear sexy clothes.

Why, are you saying you can strip naked on board of MRT and expect people to look away? Oh, come on! Don’t you even stare at good looking guys on the street, girls?

In my case though, sometimes I was walking with my husband and our toddler, in jeans and loose shirt — and still got stared at. FYI, I’m 31 years, 148 cm, 42 kg (yes, slightly overweight). Nothing like Jessica Rabbit. Should we organize a “stop staring” movement then?

As for our parents’ advice — look, it’s just a common knowledge that we shouldn’t flaunt our branded bags to avoid being targeted by picpockets. It wouldn’t guarantee you’d be safe, but it’s still a sensible thing to do.

Although, again, being in Singapore, we’re quite safe from pickpockets, purse snatchers–even rapists.

Still, you have to be careful if you wore too little clothes in Singapore. The penalty for indecent exposure could include a fine of up to $2,000. No kidding.

Last month I finally managed to order my most wanted book ever. That is Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, which is — as you might have guessed — about the arch mage Raistlin Majere again, along with The Brothers Majere.

I ordered from thriftbooks.com, just because they gave the lowest price; even compared to other sites which ship for free like The Book Depository. Of course they sell seconhand books, but I don’t really mind it as long as they’re still readable.

It wasn’t the first time I ordered from them, and in the past I’d found Singpost to be very trustworthy. Last month it took them only four days to deliver the items I purchased from amazon.com for Adam’s birthday.

Of course, if you do online shopping so much then you’re bound to experience lost items. And It hought my time has come, as I expected the books to arrive on October 27.

But then they have finally arrived last night. Yay!

Thank you Singpost and Thriftbooks.

I’ll go back to my books for now, and post some reviews later.

Jessica Simpson and her toilet woes.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Net10 for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

It’s true living apart from our parents and relatives are never easy. But honestly, I think nowadays it’s still so much easier than say twenty years ago.

Apart from internet, the second thing we need is a cell phone ? which I think everyone has, and a good plan. Well, make it two things then.

If you’re looking for such a plan, you might want to consider Net10 Unlimited ? if you’re living in the US that is.

They have an especially great plan for heavy mobile users. For $50 only, you get nationwide coverage and unlimited text, talk and data.

Of course that doesn’t really fit those who only use their cell phone to send SMS and order deliveries ? like me.

Fret not. You can still choose the Easy Minutes Plan, an automatic minute plan which starts at $15 for 200 minutes. With these kinds of Pay-As-You-Go plans, your minutes carry over with active service.

If you feel like you could save money by switching between the two plans each month, you can freely do so. There is no contract and credit checks.

You can also purchase cell phones from them, which depending on your needs, can be cheaper than $15. Smart phones are also available from under $60.

If your parents lived overseas, like mine, Net10 have long distance service to over 75 countries. It’d cost around 15 cents per minute for calls originated from the US.

Better still, if your parents lived in Canada or Mexico, currently Net10 have international neighbors program which gives you special phone number that your parents can use to call you.

Apart from their site on www.net10.com, you can check them out on Facebook and Twitter for more information .

Now, I may not be convincing enough, but you should spare a few minute to listen to What Rob has to say.

 You can also watch Real NET10 customer testimonial here:

 <iframe frameborder=”0″ width=”480″ height=”271″ src=”http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xiacmj”></iframe><br /><a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xiacmj_hecor-net10-testimony_tech” target=”_blank”>Hecor net10 testimony</a> <i>by <a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/eriarka” target=”_blank”>eriarka</a></i>

Now I just wonder when such plans would make their way to Singapore?

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Newlywed Gene Simmons on divorce: “I’ve always been anti-marriage for men until they become mature. As a species we don’t mature until we’re in our 60s. The biggest financial pitfall in life is divorce. And the biggest reason for divorce is marriage.”

When I just started reading Dragonlance, I only read the ones written by Margaret Weis. Then I expanded.

Nowadays I just buy anything with Raistlin’s name on it. Dark Heart is one of them.

This third volume of The Meetings Sextet is the story of Kitiara, Raistlin and Caramon’s half sister cum one of the biggest villains in Krynn.

As I said before, I have no love for her.

Cropped curly hair and muscular body may look good on James Franco, but I just can’t picture them on any girl. Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Her looks apart, at least in the Chronicles, Kitiara is a smart, courageous, ambitious and cold hearted b****.

As Dark Heart is meant to be the prequel of the chronicles, I was hoping to find the reason why she becomes who she is.

Kitiara has always admired her father, Gregor, a former Knight of Solamnia cum mercenary. So when she grows out of childhood, she leaves her home in order to find him, and wealth, of course.

The truth is, author Tina Daniell did a decent job — considering this was her first novel. But it’s just hard to make an appealing character from Kitiara uth-Matar.

Daniell describes her admirable role in her twin brothers’ upbringing, and running the household, no doubt to reveal that Kit actually has a good side too–and she’s not always that lustful.

I just think she should also balance her story by telling more about how Kit changes. Because, unnlike Raistlin, her transformation is not full. She just never had any strong reason to turn into evil, except for her lust for wealth. Somehow that’s the impression I get after reading this.

It’s allright, I guess. Some people are grown to be evil. But Dark Heart just makes it difficult to see the relation between young Kit and the grown up one. They’re just like two different people.

Is that why Margaret Weis chose to ignore this novel, and rewrote her own version of what happened in the Majeres household in The Raistlin Chronicles?

I can’t think of any other reason, to be honest. Maybe I’m wrong though. I’ll say more after reading Steel and Stone.

As for this one, that’s about it. Overall Dark Heart is not so bad, as a novel. Just don’t connect it with any other Dragonlance series, for it will confuse you.

If you’re not sure whether Raistlin’s first teacher is Master Theobald and Morath, for example, better double check with Astinus of Palanthas.

That’s the problem with having so many authors handling the same characters. I think Dark Heart is worth 2.5 stars out of 5.

The proof that women are superior at multitasking

A friend of mine moved to Austin, TX about five years ago. We hardly talked when we were still in college, because we had different majors.

But now that we’re so far from each other, we often talk online. Later on, I found that my cousin also moved to Austin. Her husband said he used to live in Singapore, and thought that it’s a very expensive place to live in.

I mean, we love Singapore, but owning a house here is just a dream. We’d need to save for years before collecting just enough money for the down payment.

Our apartment now is only a little bit more than 1,000 sq ft, and it costs more than $750,000. Landed house would be much more than that, of course. Nevertheless, having lived in a landed house all my life, I can’t help but missing the peace of it. No noisy neighbors who go up and down the elevator, no fire alarms ringing all night.

Now, people said the USA have high cost of living, but I don’t see that from houses price in Austin. I happened to browse for homes for sale in Austin last night, and I found this site ashtonwoodshome.com.

They’re the only builder in the US who have Power House Green and Environments for Living programs, which means their homes are designed and built using a scientific procedure that enhances their performance. As the result, you can save up to 45% per year on utility bills.

I tried to look up houses which are suitable for me. And there are–a lot, and they’re much cheaper than condominiums here.

That one above is my favorite. It’s more than twice bigger than our apartment with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, yet it only sells for USD 221,990, which is SGD 287,784.93.

Now I understand why they moved back to the US from Singapore.

I didn’t find Indonesia to be much changed in our visit a few weeks back — except maybe for people’s fashion sense.

While European countries are busy banning headscarves, they’ve seemed to become the most popular accessories for women in Indonesia.

I was surprised to see that among my classmates in Junior High, there were perhaps only five of us who don’t wear them. On the contrary, none of us wore headscarves some 19 years ago, when we’re still in school.

Does it mean that people are more religious nowadays? Well, it depends on what you think as being religious. I personally think that many women simply use the headscarves as fashion statement, and nothing more.

Back in the day when Suharto still ruled, headscarves were banned from public offices; which made many women chose not to wear them. Whether or not Suharto had French blood in his veins, I really don’t know; but women were daunted by the ban. They chose work over hijab.

Now that he’s gone, women can now wear them anywhere. The way I see it, it’s pretty much like mini-skirts in South Korea.

Why did I say so?

Unlike in France, these women actually wear hijab only when the dress up or in public places. Otherwise, around their neighborhood they still don’t mind to be seen without them.

Last but not least, I’m not even sure that nowadays it’s still true that they wear them out of modesty. Gone are the plain monochrome outfits usually associated with Muslim women.

Now they wear trendy headscarves over their bright tight fitting blouses, paired with skinny jeans. Their makeup and bling bling can also give Beyonce a run for her money.

I don’t know if these women pray harder than they were ten years ago, because they didn’t tell me. But I do know that they wear hijab by their own choice, and they weren’t forced by the men in the family, unlike what some countries suggested.

Does the girl in the picture looks submissive to you? To me, she’s as submissive as any other girl in similar pose.